Safety with online competitions, advice please.

MRSJKJ

Just started entering 'competitions', most of which seem to be market research and attempts to persuade me to allow contact from various companies. I know nothing about scams or spams so would be grateful for any advice please. Thank you MRSJKJ

brownhandbag

do not pay for anything, or click on any links in e-mails.

weeowens

MRSJKJ wrote: »

Just started entering 'competitions', most of which seem to be market research and attempts to persuade me to allow contact from various companies. I know nothing about scams or spams so would be grateful for any advice please. Thank you MRSJKJ

Just enter (note the bold) via MSE.Very little of the spam sites get through & you should miss the market research stuff out that way.
There are enough comps on here to keep you very busy without going "off piste" and randomly entering other internet comps.Plus you can use the MSe functionality to track your entries.

Blulu

A few suggestions:

1) If you comp, you WILL get spam. They go together like love and marriage. If you really, really hate spam, this might not be the bestest hobby for you.

2) When entering comps posted here, don't enter any that are freshly posted, until you feel more confident about this sort of thing. Our gang are great at weeding out the good from the bad, and pointing out what to look out for. So give them a few hours to do their stuff before entering

3) Always read the tick boxes carefully, and look out for some teeny ones, hidden further down the page. After a while you'll get used to what to look for.

4) If you don't want spam, obviously always tick for no marketing where you can, and perhaps don't enter comps where a subscription is mandatory. But I refer you back to my first point. Some will slip through the net.

5) If you don't want telephone calls, you might need to be extra careful and picky about what you enter. There are so many comps here that if you decide never to include your phone number, there will still be plenty of comps left to enter. I don't get many marketing phonecalls, thankfully. But then, I am careful about which sites I share my number with. Some use a separate mobile phone just for comping - though I've never really understood why this would make cold calls less annoying? Just because they ring on a different phone.

Blu X

fire**fly

MRSJKJ wrote: »

Just started entering 'competitions', most of which seem to be market research and attempts to persuade me to allow contact from various companies. I know nothing about scams or spams so would be grateful for any advice please. Thank you MRSJKJ

hi & welcome
there's also some great advice in the our compers guide to help
Comping Guide - Getting Started & Other FAQs


& I second all blulu says on post 4 :T
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=67606674&postcount=4


lots of good luck x

sleepyjones

Just going back to the spam mentioned above, It might be worth creating a new comping email account (ie Don't use your main account), so when you do enter comps you only use this email address (probably best not to use something with obvious keywords, ie Mycompingaddress@hotmail etc, as some comp runners don't really approve of people that are obvious compers).
Also, don't ever open any attatchments in emails unless you're really sure you know what it is.
I seem to be getting a lot of "Your Paypal account has been limited", and "Your Apple account will be suspended" type stuff (I don't even have an apple account), so always double check the email address that these emails come from.