Heart Radio sob stories.

surfboard2

They don't necessarily bother me tbh, but i'm pretty sure Heart comps pick their winner by random when it's just a simple multiple choice question so i don't really understand that point of it.

EAB2

I agree that it is utterly vile. I feel truly sorry for people who have had cancer or some other horrible thing, but to use it as a tactic to win a prize is despicable.

It's one of the worst aspects of Facebook, as mirrored on shows like the x-factor - the sob story as a vote winner.

With comps it's "Look at me, haven't I had to put up with some s##t - give me free stuff as some kind of compensation". That's not comping, it's begging.

Blulu

It doesn't bother me at all. It's sooooo British to care about this sort of thing. Very 'stiff upper lip' and 'don't wash your dirty linen in public'. I would object to anyone making stuff up, but otherwise, it's fine. I don't at all see it as begging to win, mostly people are just being honest. The fact that some people are worse off, doesn't mean losing the right to moan, or as some have said, to get things off their chest.

This issue crops up here from time to time, and as I've said before, when my kitten was run over and killed about 8 months ago, I did mention it in a competition entry. I won that comp - don't know whether it was because of my 'sob story' or not. But winning the prize helped me LOADS. I won a drawing, and chose to have it of my beautiful cat. Don't care a bit if some think it's pathetic. Don't even care if it IS pathetic. My drawing is my avatar pic here. And it's such a fab reminder of my naughty cat, for the short time we had her.

So if someone has lost a baby or whatever and 'uses' that in a comp. It doesn't mean they think winning will replace their loss. It usually means, life has been hard lately and winning a comp would be extra welcome right now. I don't see anything wrong with that at all.