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

taxiphil

Didoow wrote: »

Sorry to hear about your situation. As I understand it, according to the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) - the body which lays down the codes for prize promotions (amongst other things):

Promoters must not claim that consumers must respond by a specified date or within a specified time if they need not (as would be the case for tickets for events, for example) (8.22 of CAP codes)

Promoters must either publish or make available on request the name and county of major prizewinners and, if applicable, their winning entries except in the limited circumstances where promoters are subject to a legal requirement never to publish such information. Promoters must obtain consent to such publicity from all competition entrants at the time of entry. Prizewinners must not be compromised by the publication of excessive personal information (8.28.5 of Cap codes)

I'm sure there is also a part that says they must make reasonable efforts to contact winner (e.g. more than once, more than one method) but I can't find that at the moment

Therefore, you can make a complaint to the ASA, but be forewarned that they can't force the company to give you the prize - only a judge can do that (you'd have to go through the small claims process). Only you can decide if it's worth it to you (and how far you take it) but you haven't got anything to lose

Thanks, I really appreciate that very helpful information.

Having further read the CAP code you pointed out to me, I notice that rule 8.28.4 says it must be specified at the time of entry "how and when winners will be notified of results."

The T&Cs in my case simply say the Promoter will contact the winner via Facebook message. Therein lies the potential breach of the CAP code I believe.

The code is all about the principles of clarity, fairness and common sense, and to that end I think the T&Cs should have said the winner will be contacted by a DIFFERENT account and will thus receive no alert/notification from Facebook, in order to comply with rule 8.28.4.

I accept that hardcore professional compers know to check their "Message requests" folder on a daily basis, but I'm not so sure the Average Joe knows this.

I'll certainly be taking further action in line with your suggestions.

Didoow wrote: »

But, yes, unless you have messaged a company first, they couldn't message you from that page - although now there is an option for them to respond to your comment but I'm not sure they all have that.

It's strange, because recently I've written comments on the Visitor Posts sections, and commented beneath existing posts, on Morrisons and Halfords' Facebook pages, and they've then sent me a private message (i.e. I didn't initiate the private messaging).

Kirri

I had a similar issue with the 'filtered' messages, I knew about the other 'hidden' folder but not about that one until I read about it and then specifically went to look for it - found a win msg a month old but the company in that case did honour it. I did wonder why they didn't tag or just message from the company page, getting a personal msg it just went straight into the filtered inbox.

If companies are doing comps to get the word out and increase their customers then it sort of makes sense they should handle a comp prize in a positive way.

mjm3346

taxiphil wrote: »

The code is all about the principles of clarity, fairness and common sense, and to that end I think the T&Cs should have said the winner will be contacted by a DIFFERENT account and will thus receive no alert/notification from Facebook, in order to comply with rule 8.28.4.

I accept that hardcore professional compers know to check their "Message requests" folder on a daily basis, but I'm not so sure the Average Joe knows this.

I'll certainly be taking further action in line with your suggestions.

Be interesting to see how you get on with that as I have never seen it stated what FB account a message might come from although some of them do point out that you should check your other/spam messages folder (the T&C's need to have said how long you had to respond in the first place and not just state it in the winning message if they want it to be a very short timescale).

Balistic123

Great thread. I've just started our first Facebook comp and thought I'd ticked every box but this thread has put me right. 180 days to claim seems the fairest option to me having messaged at least 6 times during that period.

Seems companies are so desperate to declare a winner they are cheating the real winners.

I spend a bomb on the gadget show comps and now having read this thread I'm wondering if I've ever missed a win thinking the caller was ppi lol

hannonle

Any update on this OP?

mjm3346

Interestingly the winner announcement from this one

https://www.facebook.com/UnitedScoop/posts/1549271695381291

Congratulations *****, an admin will pm you shortly from their personal account.

and the competition posts had this

Winner contacted via pm by an admin

taxiphil

hannonle wrote: »

Any update on this OP?

I've had preliminary advice from the ASA stating that, in their opinion, the company is in breach of the CAP code for several reasons, mainly that 48 hours isn't long enough for a winner to claim their prize, and also that the T&Cs implied that the winner would be contacted by the company's official Facebook page, which clearly didn't happen in my case.

I've drafted a court claim and have sent a copy to the company, with a letter before action. The ASA in the meantime will try to deal with it under their informal resolution scheme. If the company still doesn't cough up then (a) the ASA will take it to an adjudication and (b) I will serve my court claim, although I've been advised this process could take upto 2 years (!) if it actually goes to a contested court hearing.

Thanks again to Didoow for pointing me in the direction of the ASA and the CAP Code.

serenity2012

taxiphil wrote: »

I've had preliminary advice from the ASA stating that, in their opinion, the company is in breach of the CAP code for several reasons, mainly that 48 hours isn't long enough for a winner to claim their prize, and also that the T&Cs implied that the winner would be contacted by the company's official Facebook page, which clearly didn't happen in my case.

I've drafted a court claim and have sent a copy to the company, with a letter before action. The ASA in the meantime will try to deal with it under their informal resolution scheme. If the company still doesn't cough up then (a) the ASA will take it to an adjudication and (b) I will serve my court claim, although I've been advised this process could take upto 2 years (!) if it actually goes to a contested court hearing.

Thanks again to Didoow for pointing me in the direction of the ASA and the CAP Code.

get a grip for goodness sake. you didn't respond in time. Why are you continuing to go on and on and on taking no blame on yourself? Drafting a complaint? You have zero chance of winning it. You didn't respond. they contacted you and it went into filtered folder. thats not their responsibility. I genuinely cannot believe you are still whining on about this. Let it go it was your fault.

taxiphil

serenity2012 wrote: »

get a grip for goodness sake. you didn't respond in time. Why are you continuing to go on and on and on taking no blame on yourself? Drafting a complaint? You have zero chance of winning it. You didn't respond. they contacted you and it went into filtered folder. thats not their responsibility. I genuinely cannot believe you are still whining on about this. Let it go it was your fault.

1. Regarding "whining on", as you call it: another person on this thread asked me if there was any update. I responded as a matter of courtesy and for the future reference of anyone reading this thread, as it's always frustrating on forums when OPs don't give updates as to the final outcome of an issue.

2. As for your "zero chance of winning it", perhaps you haven't bothered to read this thread fully. Did you miss the bit where I said the ASA have already told me they think the company is in the wrong?! They write and enforce the rules on competitions. With respect, I value their professional opinion more than I value yours.

3. As to why I'm pursuing the matter, it's because it's a valuable prize which I believe I won legitimately. This is a Money Saving forum set up to help consumers to get the best deal for themselves.

Anyway, to update the issue, the company has told me not to issue the claim as they are taking the ASA's preliminary advice seriously and are going to get back to me with an alernative offer of settlement as the original prize can no longer be sourced.

pavers

It's always worth a shot if it's a good prize. Look forward to hearing what it was and how you get on.