CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge - The Airing Of Grievances

So, as you're likely aware if you've been playing the game and are at least mildly sentient, the CNBC mock trading platform has encoutnered some, er... technical difficulties.  Currency trading, for instance, got bollocksed up the first day and was promptly torn down by the admins, yet to re-appear.  But even the equity trading has fallen somewhat short of stability (somewhat befuddlingly, as this is the third year of the contest).

Based on the performance rankings, there appear to be 510,000 or so active portfolios, which means there are at least 102,000 registered traders (up to 5 portfolios/trader).  But last year's contest had roughly 220,000 traders at the outset and grew swiftly from there, so the size of this year's user base alone shouldn't present any new tech burdens.

The most common problem I'm encountering is a "Page not found" error (no matter which section of the site I browse to) in the main content frame.  Logging out and back in seems to remedy the error, so it's little more than a mild nuisance.  But a lot of you have been writing in and/or leaving comments about the problems you're encountering, so I thought we'd open up a post devoted to your beefs with the contest.

In addition to the many technical issues (can't view portfolios, can't process trades, trades already entered spontaneously disappear, etc.), we're also welcoming general "fairness" grievances.  The rules are what the rules are, of course, and other than cases of real ambiguity, I'd be surprised if the administrators were to consider reversing something simply because it's a crap rule wreaking unintended consequences.  Still, it can't hurt to let them know you're peeved about certain things.  You're probably not alone.

To wit, one reader e-mails his dissatisfaction with the trivia bonus time window.  These questions (which amount to $12,000 or 1.2% of your initial allocation every day) can only be answered during the day - after each question appears on the site (the last one going up at 3 pm), but before 4 pm, at which point they all disappear.  This is how the rules spelled things out, but it's a fatal disadvantage to anyone who can't be logged in between 3pm and 4pm.  I understand the contest is meant to drum up viewership, both of the shows and the online content, but in an effort to drag people back to the site several times per day, they're likely losing otherwise interested participants who can't simply get online at the right time and know they can't compete without those $60,000 in weekly bonuses.

Whatever bone it is you have to pick, you can plead your case to the admins at
customercare@support.cnbc.com and/or let us know in this thread.  You may find someone else has encountered (and possibly resolved) the same issues.

See all related posts in the CNBC Portfolio Challenge archive.