The Handbook Competitions

winsand23

Hi
I have just seen my name appear as a winner in three of the Handbook competitions winners page. All are great prizes, but I was never contacted, so could not claim in the seven day period (as per terms and conditions).
Has any one ever won with this company, and if so, how did you find out and claim please?
(In fairness, I emailed the Company yesterday and asked the same questions. It's a little early to get a response I guess.)

EnglishWelshie

Is it definitely you and not someone with the same name.

mjm3346

EnglishWelshie said:

Is it definitely you and not someone with the same name.

in some cases they reveal too much info

https://www.thehandbook.com/competition-winners/

winsand23

I did wonder that myself. The fact that they printed a Christian and Surname and I had entered  the competitions set me thinking.....
That's why I just wanted to know if anyone else had won with them, and how they were contacted to put my mind at rest.

One-Eye

I have no personal knowledge of The Handbook's comps and I can't find any general terms & conditions on their website.

A few previous winners have posted in IWIWIW eg.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6253092
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6365735
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5246102
... and the first of these mentions receiving notification by email.

Some information for you to use in your correspondence with them:

UK competitions should be run according to the ASA's rules and the CAP code (Advertising Standards Agency, Committee of Advertising Practice).

The terms and conditions should state how prize winners will be informed. Both CAP and the ASA expect promoters to make all reasonable efforts to contact the winner. Simply putting a winner's name in a winner's list is NOT contacting a winner. Ringing a winner once (unsuccessfully) will not be considered sufficient.  

Jenna_Appleseed

mjm3346 said:
in some cases they reveal too much info

https://www.thehandbook.com/competition-winners/

yeesh at them publishing what looks like one winners full name & address 

winsand23

No response from The Handbook as yet, which is of concern. One-Eye has given me some information about competition rules and regulations. I do hope they are genuine. They have some fantastic prizes 

Has anyone had problems before with other competitions,about finding themselves on winners lists and not being notified,or getting their prize? What did they do? Did they succeed in getting their prizes eventually?

I'm relatively new to all this, and would like to believe competitions are run fairly.

mjm3346

You have had no response within 3 working days no reason for that to be of concern, person who deals with winner queries might be off, only work part-time and almost certainly has other tasks to do and that's assuming the e-mail went direct to the person who would deal with it.

You have seen the 7 days bit
"Winner must respond within 7 days, otherwise a new winner will be chosen"
so possibly the winners lists include winners who have responded in time and also reselected winners.

Two I glanced at were

Winner will be drawn on Friday 19th January at 10am and must respond within 2 hours or the prize will be reallocated.

Winner has 48 hours to accept the prize before another will be chosen

winsand23

Thank you. I hadn't seen the bit about claiming within two hours! I would like to know how winners are contacted though, and how you claim? If they are the rules that's fair enough. Just need to know.

mjm3346

winsand23 said:

Thank you. I hadn't seen the bit about claiming within two hours! I would like to know how winners are contacted though, and how you claim? If they are the rules that's fair enough. Just need to know.

They can only contact you by the info you give them so if you only have to give an e-mail address to enter they would have to contact you that way, e-mail and phone contact either way etc. (some of the prizes are for events and the 2 hour response was for one of them, assume you would have to have give a phone number for that one)

winsand23

That is what I thought,but I checked emails,inbox, spam and junk and couldn't find anything. I don't think I missed seeing notifications, but I guess I may never know?