£1400 prize not going to be fulfilled

lomaxsylvia

On 1st September I had what I thought was a wonderful prize from Cosmopolitan Daily Mag for tickets to the Wedding show, which promptly arrived and 1ct diamond, 18ct gold earrings.
After an email about 3 weeks ago they said they were making them and that I should receive them in about 2 weeks. After chasing this up again I have had the following email:

(I have left their name out for the time being)

Dear Sylvia
Thank you for your email.
Unfortunately we are in dispute with Good Results at the moment. When we were initially approached by Good Results who were the organisers of this prize through Cosmopolitan, we were promised that we would get very good media publicity and a list of all entrants who signed up. We generously offered a pair of our IQ Diamond earrings set in 18k gold which retail at £1400 in return for a good amount of brand awareness and a contact list, which would have been invaluable to us. We have not had any of what was agreed and now they are requesting over £700 for the contact list, which we are obviously not willing to do]All I can say is that we are very sorry that you seem to be caught up in the middle of all of this and we sincerely regret this situation. However, I hope you can appreciate we are a very small business with a wonderful product an great potential, but we are not in a position to give “something for nothing” and as a matter of principle, we cannot fulfil our side of the arrangement without any form of benefit to our company in return.
I would suggest that you write to Good Results and let them know your feelings about this situation. Hopefully they will understand that small businesses simply cannot afford to give away high value items of stock without some sort of benefit in return and because of their unfairness, we are regrettably caught between a rock and a hard place.]I am sorry that we could not deliver better news to you.
With warmest wishes

CAN I DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS?

Stevie_Palimo

Do as suggested and write into the prize giving Company, Whilst this is quite unfair to say the least it would be the Company that offered the prize in the first place bearing the actual cost of the item so the secondary Company here by rights has nothing to sort out, I would however be expecting them to do more to fight my corner if I had of won the prize as described and listed on a third party website.

I would say write back to the first one and say that you feel they should try and resolve this first and foremost, It is a prize and not a so called contract as such so this really would fall on the realms of doing the right thing, I would then If I got nowhere cc them both in and say that you are far from happy with the situation and whilst you are aware it was indeed a prize you should not be placed in the middle of a petty dispute and will happily see if the press may be of interest in a story about it.

UltraChris

One for the ASA to look into perhaps as it seems the prize never existed in the first place?

Bobble5366

Agreed ASA seems the first point of contact, bad PR is much worse than a smaller than anticipated 'contact list' . Please keep us informed on how you progress with this.

lomaxsylvia

Thanks will keep you informed, how do I contact ASA? does anyone have contact details please? Never had to do this before as had some lovely wins over the years without any real problem.

Stevie_Palimo

lomaxsylvia wrote: »

Thanks will keep you informed, how do I contact ASA? does anyone have contact details please? Never had to do this before as had some lovely wins over the years without any real problem.

https://www.asa.org.uk/Consumers/How-to-complain.aspx

I do not think much will happen through these guys but may be wrong so will be keen to hear what the outcome would be after raising a complaint, I think that the best route first and foremost would be as I posted above saying to the first then 2nd Company then looking at other avenues after this.

toniq

I would initially contact the Cosmopolitan editor as they are who you won with and they should be sorting this out.

Asa details; https://www.asa.org.uk/Consumers/How-to-complain.aspx

lomaxsylvia

Thanks Stevie, yes am just about to contact Cosmopolitan and the providers first before ASA.

Will keep you all posted, and thanks for the help

smitchy73

I'm sure there is a competition ombudsman that others have used before. Yep here is a link to the thread from a few years ago, whether they are still going, I'm not sure.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/6871969#Comment_6871969

mjm3346

smitchy73 wrote: »

I'm sure there is a competition ombudsman that others have used before. Yep here is a link to the thread from a few years ago, whether they are still going, I'm not sure.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/6871969#Comment_6871969

They changed to the IPM years ago and later become much more company (member) focused than for the consumer, they can suspend/throw-out a member but have no legal powers and if someone is not a member then they cannot even throw them out.

http://www.theipm.org.uk/


They do verify some competitions as you can see on the T&C's below and would probably do what they could if there was in issue with one that has been verified

http://toffifeetime.co.uk/terms

ikkle87

smitchy73 wrote: »

I'm sure there is a competition ombudsman that others have used before. Yep here is a link to the thread from a few years ago, whether they are still going, I'm not sure.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/6871969#Comment_6871969

It's done through the ASA now as mentioned above