THE race to collect TNP Dollars (TNP$) has just got hotter, with some netizens offering cash in exchange for TNP$ on forum websites.

Forum user Yezhao, who posts on popular IT and lifestyle website VR-Zone, is offering $1 for every 2,500 TNP$.

The 30-year-old is trying to beat rivals by collecting as many TNP$ as he can.

He feels the TNP$ campaign is very good because it 'gives people a chance to read TNP and win prizes at the same time' and is keen to outbid others for the items he is interested in.

Over at community website SGForum, user TekkenDR_admin@co.jp is also interested in buying TNP$ from collectors .

His offer? $2 for 10,000 TNP$ collected.

A trawl through other local forums revealed similar offers from netizens keen on getting their hands on TNP$.

And there are no shortage of sellers too. Some collectors are taking the initiative to sell their TNP$.

eBay Singapore user kazuhikosg, an avid follower of The New Paper, is selling his TNP$ because he thinks he might not get the item he wants .

Exchanging real cash for TNP$ might seem to be a novel idea, but it's not the first time readers have thought outside the box.

The previous TNP$ campaign was run before the Internet became popular. Then, potential buyers of TNP$ had to resort to other means to bump up their collection.

For example, then, in 1993, a Mr Dick Wong, an estate manager, ran an advertisement in The New Paper looking for TNP$.

He offered to pay $10 for 30,000 TNP$, and received almost 100 calls from sellers.

Not all netizens want the dollars for themselves, however.

Over at ClubSNAP, a photography forum, Mr Jonathan Lim, 39, is trying to rally fellow forum users to collect TNP$, bid for an item, and then donate it to charity.

Doing it for charity

Mr Lim, who posts under the username smalltake, thought it would be 'a unique way of doing something collectively for charity' and would prefer the prize to be donated to 'an old folks home, an orphanage or the Salvation Army'.

The finance manager, who considers himself a regular reader of The New Paper, was doing it all for ClubSNAP.

'I'm quite active on the forum, so I wanted to do something for charity in the forum's name,' he said.

He feels that the TNP$ campaign can foster online camaraderie between friends.

He said: 'The TNP$ campaign can help get a group of friends doing something together, which is what we always try to do on the forums.

'You need the help of friends to get a high bid in because it's very hard to do it by yourself.'

Bidding on the prizes in TNP$ Auction Series 1, which include a Fujifilm digital camera and a Samsung home theatre system, is still going on.

All prizes in Auction Series 1, which ends on May 10, are sponsored by Audio House.

Shea John Driscoll, newsroom intern.

This story was first published in The New Paper.