Competitions Discussion Thread Part 2

puddings_2

dengolby wrote: »

A little while ago I posted a competition hosted by Healthy Soul. This was an email comp asking for the answer to a question which I supplied.

Today I received this email.

I'm assuming that this competition was advertised to more than just yourself, so how were they able to tell that it was you that posted the info on the forum?
I guess that it's because your real name is Den Golby?

My advice on all forums is "always be anonymous".

• Dont use your real name as a user name
• Dont be specific about where you live in your profile
• If you have an email address in your profile use one that's only used for the forums.
• If you want to share personal info with another poster then use a pm.

I hope they don't decide to sue you. It would be a shame cos all that you were trying to do was help the other MSE'rs, but like they say posting the answer is (from their point of view) not good for their business and certainly not in the spirit of the promotion. If I ran a company and I could trace somebody that was trying to spoil my competition then I'd do what they're threatening to do to you.

If I were you I'd delete the post, send them an apology and start again on MSE with a new user name.

dengolby

My original (edited) post is here: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=530939&highlight=Healthy+Soul

My name is a nomme de guerre but it is one of my email addy's that I used to enter the comp.

The mail was from "Frances"

I can only assume she is a comper. How else would she know that I posted her comp here?

I mailed an apology to her and she replied not to worry.

catz747

They can find their comps posted on here easily, they could google. Or they can see where people have clicked through from

They normally politely ask us to remove answers don't they?, and we normally do

It has happened a few times before

Cheeky_Chicken

puddings wrote: »

I'm assuming that this competition was advertised to more than just yourself, so how were they able to tell that it was you that posted the info on the forum?
I guess that it's because your real name is Den Golby?

My advice on all forums is "always be anonymous".

• Dont use your real name as a user name
• Dont be specific about where you live in your profile
• If you have an email address in your profile use one that's only used for the forums.
• If you want to share personal info with another poster then use a pm.

I hope they don't decide to sue you. It would be a shame cos all that you were trying to do was help the other MSE'rs, but like they say posting the answer is (from their point of view) not good for their business and certainly not in the spirit of the promotion. If I ran a company and I could trace somebody that was trying to spoil my competition then I'd do what they're threatening to do to you.

If I were you I'd delete the post, send them an apology and start again on MSE with a new user name.

That all seems a bit OTT - there was no talk of being sued, they just asked that the answer not be posted next time!

Esmeralda78

puddings wrote: »

I hope they don't decide to sue you. It would be a shame cos all that you were trying to do was help the other MSE'rs, but like they say posting the answer is (from their point of view) not good for their business and certainly not in the spirit of the promotion. If I ran a company and I could trace somebody that was trying to spoil my competition then I'd do what they're threatening to do to you.

If I were you I'd delete the post, send them an apology and start again on MSE with a new user name.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: I'd like to see them try and sue. Unless Den is a secret MSE millionnaire, they'll never recover their lawyers costs from him and probably would end up going bust.

Personally I think that was a bad PR move on their behalf. I would never have gone to the site if the answer wasn't posted. Having gone to the site, I had been very interested and was considering ordering from them. I really don't think I'll bother now.

divadee

just to let you regulars know i am off on my summer hols tomorrow morning. I have had a clear up of the board, but obviously i wont be around to move the closed comps etc... over until monday 27th august.


Be good and have fun whilst im away

sarerb18

divadee wrote: »

just to let you regulars know i am off on my summer hols tomorrow morning. I have had a clear up of the board, but obviously i wont be around to move the closed comps etc... over until monday 27th august.


Be good and have fun whilst im away

Have a great time. Take care.
Sarer.

puddings_2

Cheeky_Chicken wrote: »

That all seems a bit OTT - there was no talk of being sued, they just asked that the answer not be posted next time!

No and I doubt whether this would be a breach of copyright myself.

However what I meant was that IF it was proved to be in breach of copyright, then in theory, they would be entitled to sue. As there is a negligible amount of money involved it would not be cost effective to do so, therefore in practice it would be very unlikely to happen.

If you had your own business and you ran a competition like this, then I'm sure that you'd do everything within your power to maximise your profits too?

edit
Saying that, if you dont beleive that you were in breach of copyright in the first place, then they have no right to get you to delete the answer from the post. Den deleted the answer like they requested, therefore he must surely think that he has done something wrong?

LMZ

Just wondered if people use different login details for MSE to the details they enter for competitions. The reason for asking was I wondered - if the competition organisers know how you've entered a competition through MSE -would this effect your chances of winning?

EverDecreasingCircles

dengolby wrote: »

A little while ago I posted a competition hosted by Healthy Soul. This was an email comp asking for the answer to a question which I supplied.

Today I received this email.

"We are pleased you have promoted the Healthy Soul competition on moneysavingexpert.com. However, would you mind removing the suggested answer (if you can do this). The idea of the competition is to get people to go to the website but by giving the answer they have no need."

"Recommending the competition is great, but taking a chunk of our website is infringing copyright so would you mind when doing it again just giving the website address and saying what the prizes are."

I have edited my post as requested but I don't know whether to feel chastened or not.

What do you guys think?

You haven't done anything different to the rest of us when we post competitions dengolby. While I understand they want people to visit their site I think they have to understand that by posting details of the competition, you have advertised their site and some of us will visit it as a result. Indeed, I made a purchase off of a site running a competition yesterday, and didn't just use it to enter the competition. That wouldn't have happened if someone hadn't posted the competition on MSE. During the time I've been entering competitions from here I've come across lots of sites I never knew existed.

As for the legalities of it all, I'm not sure. They seem to want their cake and eat it IMO.

I also can't help wondering how they knew it had been posted on MSE???

Jen x