E: 11/10 £5000 daily giveaway at bonkersaboutbiscuits.com

Enigmatic_Me

I am going to play devils advocate here. How do you know it is the people that are "swapping codes" are the ones that are "not adhering" to the T&Cs. For all we know there could be some other scam going on. McVities have not confirmed what the so called "not adhering" to T&Cs actually is so nobody really knows.

I agree with Surgeoner and can see that what they are doing is trying to make it fair so that more people can win.

Look at the Magnum fiasco, now I only bought two promotional packs of Magnum as I find them very sickly (nevermind one magnum contains 28g of fat :eek:). I could not believe the amount of Magums some people were buying and eating. I read of some amazing wins with Magnum with some people winning loads of times and I mean loads. So should it not be made fairer, to let more people have a chance?

Upsa-Daisy

sugarbabe61 wrote: »

So should it not be made fairer, to let more people have a chance?

McVities had the power to make it fairer when they invented the competition and wrote the T&C's. We are compers by nature so will buy loads of packets to win as that is our hobby and nobody should say "stop" just because they feel it is unfair that someone is winning more times because they bought more biscuits or had the gumption to exploit a huge gaping flaw in the competition.
McVities have cocked up plain and simple and are trying to shift the blame. :mad:

Your post hasn't enraged me surgeoner, McVities have! I can see what your trying to point out it just upsets me the way McV have worded the change on the T&C's

moneymakestheworldgoround

One poster, RuBy I think, posted some things on here, rang or emailed McVities, then came back on here promptly and deleted all their posts. Their reason was McVities were quite clear in what they considered abusing the system and that they now were unable to discuss it with the forum anymore.

I assumed this to mean our thread therefore contributed to the change in T&Cs. If there were no problems, then their posts wouldnt have needed to be deleted.

I think all of us compers have bought loads of biscuits - more than the average Mr and Mrs Joe Public would do I think. So we are genuine consumers. And as I have said loads of time, we havent cheated the system or found a technical loophole which means McVities have to pay out double the daily amount. No one has cracked the winning time slots, or created a formula to hack into the system. We all played the game the same as anyone else.

As for Magnum, I didnt enter this comp so I dont know too much about it. But I read an article today which likened it to the Lottery. If someone buys 50 lottery tickets, they have increased their chances of winning against the person who buys one ticket. Is this against the spirit of a competition? No. Therefore people who bought loads of Magnums were just increasing the probability of a win which isnt against the rules. Its logic surely?

The more wins we compers had on McVities, strangely the more biscuits we bought. The bug takes over, the competition begins and the fever takes hold. I could have won the biggie 2 days in a row, and I would still have dashed out and filled up with Penguins for a chance to win more.

spaceman_2

Argh.

Bought a load of biscuits, come back to see the T&Cs have changed, and having already won a minor prize there's now only 10 prizes I could win each day instead of 50!!

Hope I can fish out the receipt as none of these packs have been opened, what with me having gone through all the codes on biscuits I actually like!!!

FUNGUY_2

I totally agree that this comp should have been run using unique codes, this would have stopped the fiasco that exists now. However, McVities other major failing was that it credited people with INTEGRITY;

Rule 10 states that to enter you should buy a promotional pack, and
Rule 11 relates to entering the code from THAT pack.
Rule 18 states that only Northern Ireland has a NPN route.
Rule 32 relates to adherence to the 'Spirit of the Promotion',

It is obvious that the intention was for each promotional wrapper to be used by its purchaser to enter the competition five times, full stop.

Multi-swapping fails to meet the above terms and conditions. it is simply a loophole that those with no integrity chose to exploit simply because they could. And whilst shouting with indignance that they've done nothing wrong and are being hard-done by, posters on this forum are well aware that they have not adhered to these rules, as is clear from the speed with which 'incriminating' posts are being deleted. What baffles me is the sheer stupidity of discussing the swaps, and boasting about large wins, on a public forum, as it surely gives McVities ample evidence to reject those wins.
I for one applaud McVities for the tightening up exercise, although I am one of the victims as I can now no longer enter. But at least now most of the prizes should go to other 'genuine customers', i.e. the original purchasers of the winning promotional packs.

dooby

I maintain that we didn't break any rules.

As for loopholes, this whole forum is about loopholes, cashback loopholes, Tesco loopholes, parking fine loopholes, bank account loopholes, Boots advantage card loopholes, credit card loopholes and so on...

The front page advertises "Get MoneySavingExpert's email full of guides, deals & loopholes - It's free and spam free, every week"

I have no problem whatsoever with McVities discovering that due to the way they set up their competition that they had left themselves open to multiple winners and then deciding to change things but they should shoulder the blame themselves. If they had written in their new terms something along the line of ...

'Initially we were encouraging people to win prizes in the Bonkers competition daily, however due to an oversight in our original Terms and Conditions we are now changing the eligibility to one minor win and one major win for the whole promotional period per person with effect from 3rd September 10:30 am. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and endeavor to honor all multiple wins prior to the change in our T&C's. '

... something like that and I personally would not have a problem.

erine

I must admit, initially when this competition started I honestly thought that McVities knew full well that people would swap codes and had actually constructed the comp deliberately to allow that. I presumed their idea was that families would be swapping with families, friends swapping with friends, colleagues with colleagues. People in shops asking to swap, at bus stops etc... the whole of the country crazily buying and swapping codes.... going absolutely bonkers about biscuits.
It's a shame really, a competition like that, which promoted sharing and community spirit in these credit crunch times, would have gone down in history and been pretty much genius thinking.

dooby

That would have made a great TV advert erine, I can picture it now :rotfl:


You should work in promotions!

Enigmatic_Me

The thing is though is that it is only a "comper" who will look for comps on packets/leaflets/magazines etc and we are in the minority.

I work in a small office with less than 10 staff in and there is only myself who would notice on a Magnum, McVities, McCoys, Coke etc that there is a competition on. Everyone else eats/drinks their goods and throws away the wrapper. I even say to people that there is a competition on there but they are not interested. The only time you see a flicker of interest is when I report a win!!!

On my walk to work the other day I counted 7 empty packets of Jaffa cakes strewn around the area. Yes the Co-op had them on offer and they all looked to be promotional packs. No I didn't bother to retrieve them neither.

So, the majority of the public would not even bother to submit entries and just ignore promotional packs.

jodester1980

FUNGUY wrote: »

I totally agree that this comp should have been run using unique codes, this would have stopped the fiasco that exists now. However, McVities other major failing was that it credited people with INTEGRITY;

Rule 10 states that to enter you should buy a promotional pack, and
Rule 11 relates to entering the code from THAT pack.
Rule 18 states that only Northern Ireland has a NPN route.
Rule 32 relates to adherence to the 'Spirit of the Promotion',

It is obvious that the intention was for each promotional wrapper to be used by its purchaser to enter the competition five times, full stop.

Multi-swapping fails to meet the above terms and conditions. it is simply a loophole that those with no integrity chose to exploit simply because they could. And whilst shouting with indignance that they've done nothing wrong and are being hard-done by, posters on this forum are well aware that they have not adhered to these rules, as is clear from the speed with which 'incriminating' posts are being deleted. What baffles me is the sheer stupidity of discussing the swaps, and boasting about large wins, on a public forum, as it surely gives McVities ample evidence to reject those wins.
I for one applaud McVities for the tightening up exercise, although I am one of the victims as I can now no longer enter. But at least now most of the prizes should go to other 'genuine customers', i.e. the original purchasers of the winning promotional packs.

We could sit and argue about this all day but to be honest its getting a bit boring now!!

I am a genuine customer, I must have bought 70 packs of their bl**dy biscuits so what gives you the right to come on here and start spouting on??

I await the backlash to which the only reply you will get is "get yourself felt!" and there wqill be no more replies.