Notified of win 25 January at 2:16PM in Compers chat corner 9 replies 353 views

dj_uk_1234

I’ve been entering competitions on and off for a while but never won.

Do you lucky winners generally get notified by telephone? I rarely check my emails in the address I use due to the sheer amount of spam and i’m worried I might have missed contact somewhere along the way
 
Cheers guys and good luck 

AC55

More often than not you're notified by email rather than phone in my experience. 

pate-ci0

I've only been notified by phone once or twice, by far the majority of wins have been notified by email (with some just turning up unannounced in the post). Most of the comps I enter do not require a phone number and unless it is mandatory I do not fill it in. 
You get in the habit of running through the emails each day and deleting the obvious spam; most WEMs are sent from a personal address from the promoting company (though not all) and if you search your emails for keywords like won or winner or congratulations then you should pick up potential prizes you might have missed.
Do make a point of unsubscribing from emails where the competition date has expired; you really need to keep the spam volume down.
I would say that I regularly get about 100-200 spam emails a day, takes about 5-10 minutes to clear them.

Brie

pate-ci0 said:

Do make a point of unsubscribing from emails where the competition date has expired; you really need to keep the spam volume down.

Why are you subscribing to anything?  The 2 competition sites I go on give the option of opting in to receiving bumpf from the promoting company so I never opt in.  Would that keep me from winning??  (legally and / or practically)

mjm3346

Although rather old this thread still gives some idea of how people get notified

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/526089/how-you-are-informed-of-wins/p1

One thing to remember is you can only get notified by whatever contact details you have given so unless you gave a phone number at time of entry you cannot be notified by phone

pate-ci0

Brie said:

pate-ci0 said:

Do make a point of unsubscribing from emails where the competition date has expired; you really need to keep the spam volume down.

Why are you subscribing to anything?  The 2 competition sites I go on give the option of opting in to receiving bumpf from the promoting company so I never opt in.  Would that keep me from winning??  (legally and / or practically)

Many competitions require signing up to their newsletter emails. You can later (usually) unsubscribe from that email list without the risk of negating your entry, although some competitions require newsletter membership when the competition is drawn.
Unless otherwise stated in the rules, ie a mandatory newsletter signup or newsletter membership, there should be no differentiation between those who choose to sign up for an optional newsletter and those who do not.
I stress 'should'.

Ms_Dee

Most competitions email you and if you do not reply within the given time scale then you usually forfeit your prize, this can be anywhere from 24 hours to 30 days usually. 

The odd prize has just turned up in the post, but yes mostly are notified by email.

You can search your email for certain words, like Congrats, Congratulations, Winner etc. which usually bring up the majority of winning emails. But you may need to manually check you Junk/Spam folder.

Always check what is mandatory for competition entries though, as often the newsletter or other communication isn't required and it is optional.

mjm3346

pate-ci0 said:

Brie said:

pate-ci0 said:

Do make a point of unsubscribing from emails where the competition date has expired; you really need to keep the spam volume down.

Why are you subscribing to anything?  The 2 competition sites I go on give the option of opting in to receiving bumpf from the promoting company so I never opt in.  Would that keep me from winning??  (legally and / or practically)

Many competitions require signing up to their newsletter emails. You can later (usually) unsubscribe from that email list without the risk of negating your entry, although some competitions require newsletter membership when the competition is drawn.
Unless otherwise stated in the rules, ie a mandatory newsletter signup or newsletter membership, there should be no differentiation between those who choose to sign up for an optional newsletter and those who do not.
I stress 'should'.

Requiring acceptance for marketing to enter a competition is against ASA GDPR advice ( if a company is happy to break that rule how can they be trusted to run the rest of the competition fairly?)

• First, the consent needs to have been freely given.  If you require people to consent to receive marketing as a condition to entering a promotion or accessing a product or opportunity, the ASA is unlikely to accept that it was ‘freely given.

https://www.asa.org.uk/news/using-consumers-data-for-marketing-consent-and-legitimate-interest.html

pate-ci0

mjm3346 said:

Requiring acceptance for marketing to enter a competition is against ASA GDPR advice ( if a company is happy to break that rule how can they be trusted to run the rest of the competition fairly?)

• First, the consent needs to have been freely given.  If you require people to consent to receive marketing as a condition to entering a promotion or accessing a product or opportunity, the ASA is unlikely to accept that it was ‘freely given.

https://www.asa.org.uk/news/using-consumers-data-for-marketing-consent-and-legitimate-interest.html

I quite agree, however I think the key word is 'advice' re. the ASA GDPR. I am sure that everyone on here has come across many competitions where the Submit button does not work unless you choose to accept newsletters or marketing. You are of course free to choose whether or not to accept but given that the ASA has been of little use in dealing with complaints about badly run competitions (no teeth whatsoever), I personally feel that it is easier to accept mandatory newsletters/marketing and then cancel than not enter the competition at all. Regarding the company trustworthyness, as with all comps I just enter and forget and am pleasantly surprised if something turns up.

Debsnewbudget

I found my last two wins in my junk folder. 

Every day I check then delete all my inbox and junk folder. 10 mins at a time.
If you are still doing competitions regularly, then try searching as people have mentioned above, then delete the lot and start again with a clean in box