Can a prize provider add a time limit for redeeming a prize?

deb2112

I won a mag daily competition at the start of April and was contacted initially by the mag running the comp and informed that the prize provider would be in touch and that the prize would be fulfilled within 28 days. The prize was to have a photo of my choosing made into a piece of art work using a choice of artistic effects (water colour, oil painting, pencil drawing etc). The prize provider duly contacted and requested the photo and to know which effect I had chosen. As I was on holiday at the time, I expressed my thanks and said I'd be back in touch but received no reply.
I then had an issue with my emails which meant I was unable to access my saved folders and couldn't find the address to contact them back until recently.
Anyway, the prize provider says there was a 30 day redemption limit and has offered some discount codes instead. Which would be perfectly fair and acceptable if I had been informed of this in the first place but I was not. The only reference to time is in the first email from the magazine stating the prize will be fulfilled within 28 days, which is a standard thing in mag daily emails which I always take to mean if you need to chase a prize, don't do it until 28 days have passed. It doesn't state that the prize will be withdrawn if I don't claim it by then although they may claim this is what is meant. I've asked them to point me in the direction of where it is stated that there is a 30 day redemption and will see what they say but wondered what others thought? Sorry for the long post- really bad at summarising!

mjm3346

It seems reasonable to set a time limit to redeem the prize but that should be set out somewhere and whether that's in the T&Cs or in an e-mail from the prize provider it should be set in advance and not after the time limit has passed.

sleepyjones

Bit tricky because it's a creative prize, someone needs to physically spend time doing this, it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume the artist may have set aside/allocated a week or two, or even a few days to work on the prize which may have been wasted time since you didn't send them your picture, time they perhaps could have booked out to someone else so therefor incurring them a loss in income. So based on that they might be reluctant to now allocate that time time again.

I don't know where you would go from here but being a creative myself, I can understand why they might not want to honour the prize if you didn't send them your picture.
If it was an iPad or something then there could be grounds for argument but because it's a physical thing that a person has to spend time on it complicates things.

Sorry, this doesn't really help you but I can see where they are coming from.
We'd really need to see the terms/contact they had with you to see exactly what it says.

mjm3346

It's mass produced "art" so I don't think too much time is spent on it as the prizes (10) were worth £50 a time.


https://www.myphotoart.co.uk/collections/photo-to-art-canvas-prints

sleepyjones

Oh right, never mind then ... I though a guy / gal was sitting there painting / sketching it.

deb2112

Thanks both. Yes I believe it to be a mass produced "shove it through a machine" type thing. Have just received another email with a fairly superior tone:

The competition you entered was run by a third-party and placed in the publication you subscribed to by them. Both will have applicable conditions.

However, all prizes placed in competitions run by third parties that use our products need to be claimed within 30 days of notification under our Conditions.

We’re sorry that your claim was not received within this timeframe.
You have therefore been offered generous discounts on a wide range of products across our linked companies.

Kind regards

Now I'm about to send back a beautifully polite one saying that I completely agree that they have to have their own terms (because I do) and could they possibly direct me to where I was made aware of them. I'm not someone to pursue a small competition prize- life's too short- but they've got my back up by saying they have terms and conditions when they haven't made those terms available to me. I just want them to be aware that two blokes in an office saying to each other "Don't let her have it, it's been too long", doesn't count!

sleepyjones

I think I would just do the "I'm very disappointed" email (and CC the magazine that you won it from) and just move on, as you say, life's too short.

Chalk it down to experience.

deb2112

Thanks for the advice guys. Actually I think I've won the argument (although they crumbled pretty quickly to be fair). They ended up saying (pretending) the time limit was stated in terms that were between them and two third parties and so I thanked them for their help and said I would take my issue to the third parties as they hadn't included anything to that effect in their terms. The next email I got said they would give me the prize anyway, even though I wasn't entitled to it, as dealing with me was consuming a disproportionate amount of time compared to the value of the prize. I'm being paid to shut up and go away!

I'd never have bothered arguing usually but I just felt that they were lying about non-existent terms which isn't on really. Hopefully they'll stand by that and send it out.