Food for thought?

Mips

I think if competitions WERE genuinly bothered by this it would be most certainly stated in their T & C's.

Any traffic to a site is good traffic - I often nose around sites and bookmark things I would like to look at and I would not be doing this if it weren't for people posting the competitions.

It is advertising. Free. All us posters are doing it for them!!!

poodledoodledoo

I have wondered whether some of these competitions are even genuine...I've certainly wondered whether they only give the prizes to people who opt into the newsletters, junk mail etc.

Mips

poodledoodledoo wrote: »

I have wondered whether some of these competitions are even genuine...I've certainly wondered whether they only give the prizes to people who opt into the newsletters, junk mail etc.

I think they are most definitely genuine! MSER's have won almost 170k between them this year. Not bad going, plus all the people on other competition sites like Loquax winning things too..

Treat it like a hobby, fill in as many as you can without it becoming tedious and keep your fingers crossed.

demon_princezz

poodledoodledoo wrote: »

I have wondered whether some of these competitions are even genuine...I've certainly wondered whether they only give the prizes to people who opt into the newsletters, junk mail etc.

I've wondered this too - can anyone confirm that they've had a fairly big win despite opting out of the newsletters and junk mail?

ginjim

if you read the i win posts that slone stands for confirmation

ive won a trip to dubai,wii tv and a holiday in hawaii

as for optouts depends how i feel really
i dont care about spam and i'm a business anyway and get loads of junk mail anyway

poodledoodledoo

Dippychick wrote: »

I think they are most definitely genuine! MSER's have won almost 170k between them this year. Not bad going, plus all the people on other competition sites like Loquax winning things too..

Treat it like a hobby, fill in as many as you can without it becoming tedious and keep your fingers crossed.

I've been comping for just about a month or so now and I find it a really fun hobby. I like the idea that I could win anything from a packet of biscuits to a house (or even nothing at all!).

I always opt out of the mailing lists etc though so I wonder whether this could be hampering my chances (not that I'd want loads of spam in my inbox anyway )?

Mips

demon_princezz wrote: »

I've wondered this too - can anyone confirm that they've had a fairly big win despite opting out of the newsletters and junk mail?

Why not just opt in all the junk mail and use a special email address?

Only takes a second to check all and the delete the rubbish

As ginjim says.. you only have to read the I won section

Besides, the suspense is fun!! I love waiting to see if I've won something

mpython

I opt out of all emails, newsletters and the like and have won everything from a holiday to an LCDTV to a Macbook Air.

As for the OP, would you mind naming the magazine so we can add it to the list of sites to avoid. If they haven't made it clear that the comp is only for members/ purchasers then they are most definetly breaking the law. Some big companies do it as well (e.g. GMTV phone comps last year) but the risk of being fined means most comps are run properly.

And every now and again we get people who run comps posting their comp on here to drum up more traffic (as they are often run by 3rd party promotional company who claim comps will increase visits to their website).

Hope this helps.

Loquax_Company_Representative

What can happen is that if a site offers entry via email it's often picked up by automated-entry services and can result in several hundred entries. We've had a few companies contact us wanting to know how they suddenly got loads of entries.

It's also why compers are now seeing a lot more captcha tags on comps.

Jason

hopeful17_2

i often get comps emailed Telling to to pass to a friend anyway so if you have 50 people in your contacts they all get it and so on and so on so .one person can generate alot of comp entries (as we all know from chain mail grrr).
Did they pay for the prize from their own pocket cos i always thought comps were for advertising reasons only just like freebies??