Outstanding win - help please

flamingice

Ok, at the beginning of June I won £250 of topshop vouchers with the sunday times (i think) in conjunction with osoyou.com
I got an email from a lady at osoyou that week saying the prize was being sorted out and would be sent to me within the week
it never was

i have phoned them several times and they say they'll look into it
the last time i phoned the woman sounded annoyed and said they'd been sent by royal mail recorded delivery. i asked her to look into it as i'd never received them and she said she would and would get back in contact with me. no one ever did, this was about a month ago.

i don't want to sound greedy, but this was one of my best wins and i would really love to be able to have these vouchers, i was so looking forward to spending them.

what i was wondering is, am i entitled to keep nagging about the prize? am i 'owed' it as they said i was the winner? should i ask for proof the vouchers were sent? and if they were, are they supposed to replace them?

thanks in advance, this has just been annoying me for a while!

suebfg

Hi,

I had a similar experience with one of the Sunday newspapers. I received a letter saying I had won a camera and should receive it in next 8 weeks. I never did so e-mailed several times. In the end, I e-mailed all the e-mail addresses on their website and eventually got a reply from a nice lady who chased up the prize and it was delivered a couple of weeks ago.

As far as I am aware, a contract is formed when you enter a competition, so they are obliged to provide the prize if you are a winner.

I would keep pushing until you get the prize.

dogcat_2

Same thing has happened to me-only much smaller prize - a DVD. I won 27 dresses DVD back in July and was sent a letter, saying I would receive it within 6 weeks, still no DVD. I have phoned three times - on the last call the lady said that she would chase it up. Still no reply. Im gonna wait until end of next week and phone again. I personally don't think this is very good PR.

liuhut

I won a portable DVD player and when I opened the box it was a normal DVD player. I rang them and they were really funny, someone else rang back and said that as I had 'complained' they would buy in a portable DVD player for me. Too blo0dy right!!!
I would def keep on at them....good luck!!!

Stranger_Than_Fiction

I think you've been very patient, waiting since June. If it was me, I think I would contact them again and explain you've been waiting since June but have still not received your prize. Although someone said they would check what had happened (did you get a name?), they have never got back in touch with you and so, reluctantly, you will get in touch with the ISP if they don't contact you within 7 days to tell you how they intend to rectify the situation. I had to contact them (the ISP) earlier this year (over a DVD that wasn't received) and their intervention sorted things out very quickly. The company who had 'sent' the DVD 3 times suddenly managed a successful delivery. The ISP man (who was very helpful) said it is not uncommon for PR agencies to arrange competitions but then be less enthusiastic when it comes to delivering the prizes.

I do hope you have luck with this. Fortunately it only seems to be a minority of companies who do this.

tiredmumof2

I had a similar issue with a WALL-E prize that never materialsed after 9 weeks. A few others won from MSE and they all received theirs so I kept on and on and I too found that the lady I was dealing with was becoming very irrate with my e-mails and my phone calls but at the end of the day I;d won the prize, my Son was looking forward to receiving it and it hadn't arrived. Anyway, long story short - I sent them and e-mail and said I would give them until the end of the week to resolve the issue otherwise I would report them to comp authorities and lo and behold within 4 hrs I received a phone call from the sponsor of the comp to say they would send a replacement out via recorded next day delivery. Sure enough they did and we had a great laugh as the prize couldn't have been worth any more than a fiver but hey, a wins a win.

Keep on at them as you've won the prize and you rightly deserve it!

flamingice

thanks for the replies everyone, i'll ring them again on monday and see what they say!
although, where do i find these comp authorities to report them to if necessary?

Stranger_Than_Fiction

flamingice wrote: »

thanks for the replies everyone, i'll ring them again on monday and see what they say!
although, where do i find these comp authorities to report them to if necessary?

You can email them at complaints@isp.org.uk. Their website is https://www.isp.org.uk. I found them to be really helpful. I hope you get this sorted quickly! Good luck.

andrew71

If the lady claims the prize was sent out by recorded delivery then ask for the reference code. She can either do two things and tell you they haven't got a record of it (which would seem very suspicious) or she could give you the reference number to check it out yourself. If you do check it out and there is no record of it being delivered yet then use that for your evidence.

liz545

From the ISP's website:

Over the past nine months, the ISP has seen the overall number of complaints from members of the public rise by 19 per cent from 136 to 162.

The rise in complaints reflects the increasing number of promotions that use digital media, with many marketers in this arena unaware of best practice or their responsibilities under the law and the CAP Code. Most of the complaints concern non-delivery of prizes, lack of communication from the operators of websites and competitions remaining live past their closing dates.

I wonder how many of those complaints are from mse'rs? Let's hope that the ISP can sort it out for you, FlamingIce!

Batgirl

I have had two prizes that have taken more than 6 months to get to me and eventually got them in the end. When I had a problem I posted and someone says that legally they have to sort out your prize if not you can contact citizens advice or something and they have a department to deal with it.