The £1.53 Limit

cornishpasty1

Miss_Cinnabon wrote: »

Taken from martin's posts:

Free Competitions Only. This is a not a place to advertise competitions you have to pay to enter. I will accept limited cost text message type competitons (though frankly they're usually naff apart from in special circumstances) where they cost up to £1.50 to text to enter, but generally I would say make sure they are free.

He hasn't updated this since it was raised to £1.53

Do you know how long ago it was raised to £1.53 Miss Cinnabon? It wouldn't be so bad if we could post the comps but maybe put a warning about 'being over the MSE limit'

Dreaming_of_Kubera

I'm finding myself agreeing with all points being made but there is something I've been pondering on over the whole Lottery ticket now costing £2.

I'm not very eloquent so please forgive me in advance ....

We used to buy a ticket for the Lotto game and it cost £1 but now (and I know we have no other option) a ticket into the Weds or Sat draw costs £2 BUT that is for two separate games? Lotto and Lotto Raffle. So would that not fall under the £1.53 limit? I'm not a rule breaker and I try not to be a rule bender either but they added a 'game' albeit without given the customer a choice and that new game is costing £1?

Please don't shout if I've completely missed the point

Rae x

Miss_Cinnabon

cornishpasty1 wrote: »

Do you know how long ago it was raised to £1.53 Miss Cinnabon? It wouldn't be so bad if we could post the comps but maybe put a warning about 'being over the MSE limit'

Think it was round about 2011 that it was changed to £1.53

Blulu

Thanks for that. So the next question is, do we agree with that, or would we like to request to open the board to those types of comps?

I suspect that what Martin may have been wanting to avoid is scam comps, but not all pay for comps are scams - in my humbles. For example, a lot of writing comps charge an entrance fee. Personally I would love to see more of those posted here. And if it is about avoiding scams, we're pretty good at weeding out the scam comps generally.

Although I do get that it might be risky, as perhaps scammers would be more likely to breach the self-promo rules for profit. But then, it's all really about profit in the end anyway. They don't provide all those lovely prizes because they feel the shareholders have too much money

Blu X

jaibaby

As I mentioned in Claire21's thread - there is a forum for comps over the limit http://textcompers.proboards.com/ - just post them in there?

I don't see what the matter is - imho I would rather all the comps together, as long as they were marked "purchase required" then I'd skim to see which ones I wanted to enter. I know this is a money-saving site, but if people were going to buy the thing anyway what's the problem?

Blulu

jaibaby wrote: »

As I mentioned in Claire21's thread - there is a forum for comps over the limit http://textcompers.proboards.com/ - just post them in there?

I don't see what the matter is - imho I would rather all the comps together, as long as they were marked "purchase required" then I'd skim to see which ones I wanted to enter. I know this is a money-saving site, but if people were going to buy the thing anyway what's the problem?

Especially perhaps as money saving could still mean spending money, even above £1.53

Blu X

Daza

Miss_Cinnabon wrote: »

Sorry got confused with the phone call comps over the text ones, the call comps went up to £1.53 and there are comps in the postal and text thread for this price, that was when martin raised it to £1.53, i do mainly the post, text and calls and cant recall seeing any costing £1.54, quite a few at £1.53 though.

Just an example on 1 of the ITV comps
http://www.itv.com/loosewomen/competitions/?oid=626&type=tcs&origin_type=campaign&origin_oid=620



How to enter & cost of entry:
To enter this Competition, answer the competition entry question stated in the Programme, via:

• PRTS Phone - call 0904 161 1000 and follow the instructions given on the PRTS phone line to answer the competition entry question; up to 6 entries per phone number. Entrants who enter twice from the same phone number will receive an additional, third entry into the competition without charge (based on the same answer and details as submitted in their second call). This can be repeated to reach the 6 entries per phone number limit. Each call costs no more than £1.54 from BT landlines. Other networks may be higher and from mobiles considerably more.
• SMS text – send a SMS text to 62345 with A, B or C to indicate your answer to the question; up to 6 entries per phone number. SMS entrants will receive a SMS reply message acknowledging their SMS entry and inviting them to enter the competition via SMS a second time using the same mobile number. Entrants who send a second SMS text using the same mobile number with their answer to 62345 by the competition closing date and time will receive an additional, third entry into the competition without charge (based on the same answer as submitted in their second text). This process may be repeated to reach the 6 entries limit. Each of the SMS entrant’s chargeable SMS text entries costs £1.50 plus one standard network rate message. If you do not want to receive SMS marketing texts about similar products and services, please add NO INFO at the end of your SMS text entry.
• Online – go to www.itv.com, www.stv.tv or www.u.tv and follow the instructions; up to 6 entries per phone number provided.

Miss_Cinnabon

Ideally i would love to see the limit raised to £2 and have asked mse for this numerous times, there are some amazing comps that cost that and have had some great wins in the past with those, i think we should be allowed the option of those comps but cant see martin ever agreeing to raise it that high

Jaibaby, yes there is the forum for comps over £1.53 but no one uses it it would be fantastic if they did though

Blulu

Miss_Cinnabon wrote: »

Ideally i would love to see the limit raised to £2 and have asked mse for this mumerous times, there are some amazing comps that cost that and have had some great wins in the past with those, i think we should be allowed the option of those comps but cant see martin ever agreeing to raise it that high

Jaibaby, yes there is the forum for comps over £1.53 but no one uses it it would be fantastic if they did though

So clearly the problem is not about posting paid for comps. Perhaps we should debate whether we would prefer to ask for the level to be raised, or whether to ask for the restriction to be scrapped?

Blu X

Dreaming_of_Kubera

Blulu wrote: »

<snip>
I suspect that what Martin may have been wanting to avoid is scam comps, but not all pay for comps are scams - in my humbles. For example, a lot of writing comps charge an entrance fee. Personally I would love to see more of those posted here. And if it is about avoiding scams, we're pretty good at weeding out the scam comps generally.<snip>

I'm with you 100% on this Blulu. Over the course of a year I enter a fair few writers comps and I have paid entry fees of £2/£4 (personally I will not pay more than £4). I would be more than happy to list them, but I don't as I know it is breaking the £1.53 limit but I do think it is a shame that the more creative compers are missing out because they can't afford the kind of magazines such comps are listed in or don't want to buy them.

Maybe the emphasis should be more on 'value for money' or 'scam alert' and then as has previously been said let the MSE forum reader make their own decision.