A win in October but no Prize as yet

tabbaz

Hi

Back on 25th October I received an email from Celebrity Angels to congratulate me and say I was a winner on one of their competitions. I replied straight away but heard nothing back. I left it a polite length of time and contacted again, again no reply. After the third email I got a reply to say my emails along with others were going to their spam file and they apologised and asked me to send my details again. I did this but no reply. I then rang the phone number on their site and spoke to the Editor who assured me she would look into this and again asked me to email her my details. I did this and got a response to say she would look into it. Since then I have heard nothing and no response from email. I then sent them a message on their Facebook private messages and the reply I got basically said that they are the hosts of all competitions and it was not their responsibility and that I should contact the promoters direct.
I asked for details of this but again no reply! I am really fed up now and do feel that this should not be such an issue and is unfair. Is there a standard letter of complaint that people have used or to contact anyone for help?

JessicAhh

Do you have a link to the original comp's Ts and Cs? That should give you an idea of who the sponsors / promoter was, and then perhaps contact them...

A public FB message on their FB page has also been known to shake companies into sending out prizes...

libra10

You've been messed around long enough.

Contact Edwin Mutton at edwinm@theipm.org.uk

or

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) at

http://www.asa.org.uk (fill in online complaint form).

Both bodies are very helpful.

Good luck

mjm3346

I'd go IPM first, they refer to ASA if need be, see their complaints form here

http://www.theipm.org.uk/best-practice/consumer-complaints.aspx

brightonman123

Is this them? https://twitter.com/CelebrityAngels

May be worth a PUBLIC enquiry, into shaming them to cough up!

tabbaz

Thank you everyone - I sent an email earlier and will give it a couple of days and then contact the IPM - thank you

libra10

If they fail to respond I would threaten them with the IPM or ASA. It usually helps them get their act together.

They're still promoting competitions on their Twitter feed, surely they should ensure that winners receive their prizes without all the hassle you're experiencing.

Good luck.

tabbaz

Just to let you all know - Thank you for all your help and advise. I decided to try to find the people donating the prize and found their website was down so guessed they were no longer in business. I opened a Cache and found a phone number and rang it. It turned out that the company had ceased trading but I spoke to the lady who knew all about the prize. She apologised and said she had been emailed yesterday by the promoters of the prize. I explained that I had no communication back from them at all and had simply looked up on the internet for myself. She has kindly agreed to send out part of the prize but sadly can no longer provide all the prize.

I guess there is a clear message here in the fact that sometimes companies do fold and we don't get our prizes. I am still saddened by the lack of communication and the way I was ignored but will draw a line under this and move on.

Thank you to all those who gave advice - Lots of Luck to you all x

lydias

Mmm, I think it's up to Celebrity Angels to provide you with the full prize. Not to go into boring detail I had a very, very long saga with a prize where the agency supplying the goods closed down and the ASA got the people actually running the competition to give me my telly and Xbox (although many months late)

JessicAhh

Do you have a copy of the original Ts and Cs? That might help in any case against them.