A Deserved Winner Not Deserving To Win - My Rant

fuzz62

A question of Integrity, a sham of a contest and the cover up that followed.

30/10/2014 - 21:30 - i was made aware of a competition run by Columbus Direct where by submitting a photograph of an "accidental Discovery" could win you an iphone 6.

21:42 i find and enter my picture, one i like although not outstanding its a personal favorite.

as per the terms and conditions
3. The Competition will run from the 9th October 2014 to 23:59 on the 31st October 2014 only (the “Competition Period”).

phew i got it in with 26 hours to spare!

31/10/2014 23.59 at this point only 1 other person had added a picture to Columbus Directs facebook page. (which can be seen under the videos sections on posts to page)

01/11/2014 i decide to look through all the photographs with the hash tag ‪#‎WeLiveNow‬, as being someone who likes good amature pictures and member of numerous photograph pages, blogs and websites.
straight away there was one photograph that took me and made me think crikey, thats decent editing to make this photograph phenomenal in my eyes, i was sure it would win, taking it all in i noticed the photograph was posted to columbus directs facebook page at 1 November at 00:56, phew! close call that given t&c section 3 stated 31/10/2014 23.59 was he cut off, a whole 57 minutes after the deadline.


7/11/2014 - 14:43 Columbus Direct announce a winner for the #welivenow competition, to my amazement (due to T&C section 3) Kevin Sutch who posted a fantastic picture on 1 November at 00:56 was the winner.

at this point i pointed out to columbus direct about sticking to terms and conditions and then followed by pointing out about Kevins photograph was posted on 1 November at 00:56.



what followed has taken me a little and made a mockery of their integrity and shown what professionalism they have.

this is their response to me pointing their error out!

7 November at 16:43 Columbus direct wrote:
"Hi Mark. We'd left for the day when Kevin posted his picture, and when we came back in on the Monday, we collated all the images and entries. We think we've been fair to the spirit of the competition; Kevin's image was the best, and in case there's any doubt, we'll refer you to point five of the terms and conditions: 5) The winner will be judged on who has the best picture. Promoter will have a judging panel with at least one independent person. The judging panel’s decision is final and binding on the entrants. No correspondence will be entered into. Have a lovely evening."

well so much for their T&C's!!! At this point i felt childish and replied accordingly pointing out they broke their own T&C and call the Competition Shenanigans for doing this

Then this morning Columbus direct sent another photograph to me (below) which suddenly shows Kevins photograph was posted on 31 october at 23:56. 3 minutes before section 3 in their T&C say is their closing time.



odd i screen grabbed the post to page which clearly shows Kevins photograph was posted on 1 November at 00:56., then on the photograph post itself it states1 November.



Later looking again at their screen grab i dropped my pen, on picking my pen up i noticed that the area around the date had been spray modified and the area is clearly seen when you adjust your viewing angle to around 45deg where they had used paint to alter the date by washing the November and adding October you can see the normal date stamp box in my screen grabs and the none rectangular one in theirs (almost like 2 rectangles).

Plus the date has changed from the standard grey to black.

What more can i say? the company can not run a competition to their own conditions, i dont mind that Photograph winning as it is phenomenal its the way they defend their error, going to the trouble of even editing the time and date!!!!!

rant over, Happy Comping!

Mark

emiai

This is terrible behaviour by the company

mjm3346

Time and date are still showing as 1st November 00:56.

sydroo

If you look on your activity log on facebook the date does come up in black capital letters (which is where their screenshot has been taken from), however, there is a way to manipulate your timezone settings by logging out of fb, changing the time zone on your computer then logging back in again. Here's a youtube video which shows you how to do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g70l5NtGj6s

fuzz62

Thanks for the video, wasnt aware that could be done so simply!!

i wasnt aware that facebook had an activity log either, not a big fan of it! Now i am not getting the same grey box effect when i copy and paste into paint or photoshop which i get when i use the regular view.

Not that it matters lol

Zanzib

Clearly a company to avoid.

GeeBee38

Terrible, i have taken a screen shot for you in case it gets deleted

CheCazzo

I hate this kind of scummy behaviour - surely one of the more knowledgeable amongst us here could point you in the direction of someone who can escalate this or at least make it more public? It's crappy conduct and people need to know. Perhaps a Twitter thing to kick it off?

toniq

http://www.theipm.org.uk/Contact-Us.aspx

http://www.asa.org.uk/Contact-us.aspx

milagro

Checazzo and OP - I think the more people that comment on the post to show them that it has not gone unnoticed the better. I've left 2 comments. I don't want to look like a troll so may be someone could comment and mention that it should be reported to ASA which would be embarrassing for a company of their size. I'm sure if they took advice from their legal department they would tell the people who run the FB account to rectify it, so mentioning reporting them to ASA could give them the kick up the bum that they need. If they don't pick a new winner or award 2 prizes then as Toniq says it should be reported to ASA. Take screen shots of everything including their responses about the screen grab and the 'spirit of the comp' as they could delete them at any time

toniq

I've asked ipm and asa to look at this thread and their conduct, I've let columbus know that.