Your advice please: won a comp but I wasn't notified

taxiphil

Hi all, I'd really appreciate your thoughts on the following situation.

Someone informed me today about the notorious folder on Facebook called "Other Messages". As you may be aware, Facebook filters some messages into this folder and doesn't give you any notification that you've received them (ridiculous!).

I decided to check my "Other" folder and in there I found a notification - 2 months old - stating that I'd won a prize from a large well known company in a competition I entered on their Facebook page.

The message said I had to reply within 2 days or I would forfeit the prize. They are now saying I can not have the prize. They are refusing to state what happened to the prize, and won't tell me if they awarded it to someone else.

Now, I have 2 grievances here:

1. The Facebook account that sent me the message was not the official account of the company whose page I entered on. It came from the account of one of their staff. This is probably why Facebook filtered it into "Other" - because there hadn't been any previous interaction between me and this person.

2. They didn't tag me in a winner announcement on their Facebook page. In fact, I've gone back through their old posts and they didn't make any winner announcement at all.

Ms_Dee

Unfortunately it is down to you as the competition winner to check all messages, you had 2 days to respond, which you didn't. Although not the prize givers fault either. Terms and conditions sometimes state that it is down to yourself to check if you are a winner and they did notify you, unfortunately you didn't see it.

I had this with a blog winning before, where I didn't see the announcement, luckily there wasn't a time limit for collecting the prize in the terms and conditions and they sent it out.

I would just accept it as a loss or see if you can get hold of the terms and conditions again and double check all of the details. Just make sure to check your others folder from now on.

Congratulations on the win, but sorry for the loss of the prize.

taxiphil

Many thanks for your reply.

My main issue is that the T&Cs state "The Promoter will notify the winner via a private message on Facebook."

Is it not fair to assume from this that the message will be sent from The Promoter's Facebook account - i.e. the same account of the page that I entered the competition on?

If this had happened then Facebook would have known I was Liking and Following that page, and so I would have got a message alert.

I can't see for the life of me why they sent the message from the personal account of one of their staff.

Very gutted as it was a £500 prize.

It would at least be nice if they'd confirm to me that they'd given it to another entrant, but they won't do this, which makes me think they did a bit of an "office raffle" instead.

DynasticDux

There isn't and hasn't been for a while a Facebook message folder called "Other" - they changed it all back in December 2015

There is now "Message requests"
and if you click the down arrow on "More" and select "filtered" that is another message box


https://www.facebook.com/YourOtherInbox/posts/912260292145008

mjm3346

taxiphil wrote: »

Many thanks for your reply.

My main issue is that the T&Cs state "The Promoter will notify the winner via a private message on Facebook."

Is it not fair to assume from this that the message will be sent from The Promoter's Facebook account - i.e. the same account of the page that I entered the competition on?

If this had happened then Facebook would have known I was Liking and Following that page, and so I would have got a message alert.

I can't see for the life of me why they sent the message from the personal account of one of their staff.

Very gutted as it was a £500 prize.

It would at least be nice if they'd confirm to me that they'd given it to another entrant, but they won't do this, which makes me think they did a bit of an "office raffle" instead.

The message could come from a separate PR company, whoever is dealing with it etc not just the team/person who handles the FB page.

T&C's may say if the prize was to be redrawn or just forfeit, should also say how you can obtain the winners details (if it was not just forfeit) but you could be outside the timescale for that.

mansey

My last two big wins were sorted out by and I communicated with PR companies, not the company who held the competition, both times they contacted me by PM on my FaceBook name

taxiphil

Thanks everyone. Oh well, it's been an expensive lesson.

I still think the company could have done more, like making a winners announcement on their page and tagging me in it. But I suppose they regard it as a bonus for them if the prize doesn't get claimed.

mjm3346

taxiphil wrote: »

Thanks everyone. Oh well, it's been an expensive lesson.

I still think the company could have done more, like making a winners announcement on their page and tagging me in it. But I suppose they regard it as a bonus for them if the prize doesn't get claimed.

If the prize has/was to be awarded to someone else if the winner failed to respond then it would be unfair on them for the company to do anything other than send a message as they said they would.

hannonle

Shame you missed it and, yes, they could have done more to contact you, but they have tried and have fulfilled it their end. I suppose you had a chance of still getting the prize if it wasn't re-allocated but that would be a good-will gesture now the claim time has passed. Unfortunately you'll just have to live and learn.
I'm really sorry and I completely understand your annoyance/frustration.

I wonder if it was Sainsbury's? I won a small FB prize with them and was emailed by a random employee. I had to check it was legit. IIRC they claimed that they couldn't send PMs from the official page because of the type of FB account it was, but I might just be remembering that wrongly. (esp as HSBC warn you against pms from personal accounts pretending to be them on their 123 comps)

taxiphil

hannonle wrote: »

I wonder if it was Sainsbury's? I won a small FB prize with them and was emailed by a random employee. I had to check it was legit. IIRC they claimed that they couldn't send PMs from the official page because of the type of FB account it was, but I might just be remembering that wrongly. (esp as HSBC warn you against pms from personal accounts pretending to be them on their 123 comps)

It wasn't Sainsbury's in my case, but I also think it's unacceptable that Sainsbury's didn't message you from their official account.

It MUST be possible to do so, because I've posted complaints and queries on the Facebook pages of several companies, e.g. Morrisons and Halfords, and they've replied to me via a direct private message from their official account.

Why on earth Facebook would make it impossible for companies to contact their own customers?! That's completely illogical (not doubting your recollection of events BTW, just saying I don't agree with Sainsbury's explanation).

It seems very bad practice to contact winners from a staff member's personal account, especially as people shouldn't contact strangers on Facebook, and equally people are advised not to accept friend requests or messages from strangers.

Also I think that in the interests of good practice and openness, a winner announcement should always be posted on the company's page with the winner's name tagged in it.

diddlydoop

I'm not sure how true it is taxiphil but I read somewhere that it is actually against Facebook competition rules for companies to name prize winners on their page the same as it is against Facebook rules for them to ask you to tag people but a lot of companies still do it. Sorry about your loss it does seem harsh but I think you just have to move on and count it as a lesson learnt.I since finding the other part of messaging on Facebook now check it once a day just in case.