Not again ITV!

RaraWilk111

I have spent a lot of money doing postal ITV comps and it all just feels a waste of time and money, ITV being investigated by Ofcom again for not including the free entries:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/entertainment-arts-53734255

DIXIE72

Like you, I enter these via postal so this is very, very disappointing to read again. Perhaps having the free online entry back would be better as at least you know, hope, its registered.  🤔🤔

lukgs7

I have spent few hundred pounds in postal costs on these comps. Ridiculious

mjm3346

"ITV said the six (competitions involved) amounted to roughly 0.3% of its competitions since 2014, and that the postal entries in question were a "tiny fraction" of the total entries."
(probably more chance of delivery not being made/made on time than it has of not being counted by ITV - 1.2% of second class mail took more than 3 days to deliver and then there are all the incorrectly delivered items) 

But anyway, while better than paying full price for text etc postal entries still offer a poor return for the likely odds

messia07

   i also enter  itv comps via post. maybe it's not worth it?

in the back of my mind i often think about how easy it would be for the company who deals with the letters, just to bin them.  

in the old days when you could enter itv comps via online for free, this forum had several winners. has anyone ever heard of a itv winner, winning via post?

.. do you reckon all comps via post (ie free route), a waste of time?

mjm3346

messia07 said:

   i also enter  itv comps via post. maybe it's not worth it?

in the back of my mind i often think about how easy it would be for the company who deals with the letters, just to bin them.  

in the old days when you could enter itv comps via online for free, this forum had several winners. has anyone ever heard of a itv winner, winning via post?

.. do you reckon all comps via post (ie free route), a waste of time?

The vast majority of correct postal entries go into the draws however the overwhelming majority of entries are phone/text/web so the odds are that a winner will not be a postal one  - waste of time? certainly not the best use of time or the value of a stamp as the odds are so poor (but obviously better than paying for an entry)  

zsafie

ITV volunteered the information about the error to the watchdog. It's a strategic move to try get ahead of it.

When I was gifted stamps last year so I started sending ITV entries by post. I've always wondered how they were counted... I discovered that they were sent to a centralised Royal Mail sorting location in Derby, the same PO Box that Channel 5 competition entries gets sent to.. but then I couldn't figure out how my entries (which were usually enclosed inside an envelope) would be handled since all entries would have to be opened/logged. 

Thinking about it, there is no limit on postal entries per person & I couldn't envision such an onerous process so I started posting less and less. Apparently they use a third party, a Derby based marketing company called Nunki Ltd that deals with the mail. If they aren't registering entries, it seems as if ITV are paying them to keep up this ruse to appear fair.

The Winsday scheme doesn't award points with postal entries so these entries could easily go unrecorded. 

I reckon that it's way more than 6 competitions that have omitted postal entries which is truly a shame considering MSE estimated 1 million entries per week, many will feel cheated.
I hope Ofcom conducts a thorough investigation. ITV needs to make serious changes!

mjm3346

zsafie said:

I discovered that they were sent to a centralised Royal Mail sorting location in Derby, the same PO Box that Channel 5 competition entries gets sent to.. but then I couldn't figure out how my entries (which were usually enclosed inside an envelope) would be handled since all entries would have to be opened/logged. 
Thinking about it, there is no limit on postal entries per person & I couldn't envision such an onerous process so I started posting less and less. Apparently they use a third party, a Derby based marketing company called Nunki Ltd that deals with the mail. If they aren't registering entries, it seems as if ITV are paying them to keep up this ruse to appear fair.

I reckon that it's way more than 6 competitions that have omitted postal entries which is truly a shame considering MSE estimated 1 million entries per week, many will feel cheated. 

I hope Ofcom conducts a thorough investigation. ITV needs to make serious changes!

(Machine letter openers can deal with tens of thousands per hour) 


Procedures of how they were dealing with postal entries have been posted on the forum several times in the past
From the "Derby" company

"We regularly capture data in any volumes from a variety of media including:... competition entries...
data capture is split across two locations, each providing connectivity and contingency for the other in the event of a major system failure....We have the capability to process data via the traditional method of keyboard input; by scanning; through the use of automated data capture and data recognition systems"

They also handled some magazine entries

"The monthly entries are scanned initially and then the unique competition code for each entry is captured by our data capture team. This allows for competition entry results to be provided and each entry is placed in a unique competition pot to allow for computerized winner selection once each competition has closed."

The ITV process

"The Winner Selector works by taking in all entries to a competition from each entry route, and assigning a unique random number to every entry. This is done independently of the original entry method, and assures that each entry has the same chance of being selected, irrespective of the method of entry."



From their accounts several years ago ITV were getting over 40,000,000 paid entries a year so by the time the 3 for 2 and BOGOF entries were included the total is likely to have been well over a 1,000,000 a week (without counting postal entries), they haven't stated a number in their accounts for several years now but have indicated revenue from this sector has continued to grow (no doubt helped by spreading prizes over several shows and/or several weeks as bigger prizes attract more entrants even if they are worse value) and it makes no difference to ITV (or C5 etc) if a free or paid entry is a winner so there is no benefit to them from deliberately omitting any entry - free or paid - and not something they would want to do in case it impacted paid entries.
Obviously the best way for them to go would be change the competition format to one where there is no need to provide a free entry route providing that did not reduce significantly the number of paid entries (some reduction would be acceptable as there would then be no cost for handling postal entries).  - getting rid of free web entry and replacing it with postal certainly increased their costs but clearly there was a net gain to them (I suspect most people either switched to paying or stopped entering altogether and only a few in comparison went postal - I personally know some who stopped, others who occasionally pay but no one who posts)    

Although better than a paid entry just the value of a second class stamp gives a poor return on the likely odds