Blacklist

Snizza · 12 April 2014 at 7:46PM

Little rant....

Not sure how to go about reporting fake online competitions or whether companies do anything even if you do report them. But on the boards should we not have some kinda black list if there isn't one already for these websites or Twitter accounts that clearly lie about giving prizes away. In particular I notice a hell of a lot of sports based Twitter pages pretending to give prizes away when clearly they are not and just after followers and free advertising of their accounts. And people continue to put the links up to the competitions on here being non the wiser.

For example:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4946107

They have managed to get 42,000 followers and I have no doubt it is down to their competitions. They claim to have given a PS4 away last week when Man Utd played Bayern Munich, but if you look at the winner they chose - https://twitter.com/prathamesh007

All his account does is auto tweet the same (text removed by MSE Forum Team) every day, and his last tweet was their competition. Nothing after, not even when they announced him has he posted anything. Plus, how could they DM him when they are not even following him?

This forum needs to be more vigilant regarding these wasters.

kzmicallef · 12 April 2014 at 9:31PM

There is of course one other possibility in these cases, some unscrupulous compers set up multiple fake twitter accs to enter certain comps where the prize is high value. either way it sucks

Snizza · 12 April 2014 at 11:47PM

Yes I have no doubt tons of people have multiple twitter accounts cheating on comps. But regarding these sports pages popping it, it's just unrealistic that they have valuable prizes to give away constantly when their pages just seem to be run without any proper website behind it or form of sponsorship. People have obviously latched onto the idea that they can con people into following them by offering fake prizes.

JessicAhh · 13 April 2014 at 9:17AM

Snizza wrote: »

This forum needs to be more vigilant regarding these wasters.

Caveat emptor...

I don't think it's anything to do with the forum - as compers, we make a judgement call whether to post or enter a competition. If we think a comp looks dodgy, then we can post on the thread to highlight that fact.

Are you expecting posters to do the amount of digging you did on their comps? Personally, I'd rather people had the time spare to post other comps than be caught up in this detective work.

Having some kind of 'blacklist' doesn't work - especially with the TW accounts - as they'll just set up under a new name.

MaineBlue · 13 April 2014 at 9:57AM

Been doing a bit of digging
The Football Cafe is based in India, so tbh, I wouldn't bother entering any more of his comps for this reason
It is owned by someone called Sripad Kilikar, who has had various 'dodgy' websites (now all shut down) in the past - many of these have hosted comps such as 'Like this page and you could win an iPad' etc.
Prathamesh Shenoi also lives in India and claims to be a Internet Marketing Consultant and Articles Writer
Make of that what you will; but I will not be entering any more of these (cough) 'competitions'

Snizza · 13 April 2014 at 4:21PM

JessicAhh wrote: »

Caveat emptor...

I don't think it's anything to do with the forum - as compers, we make a judgement call whether to post or enter a competition. If we think a comp looks dodgy, then we can post on the thread to highlight that fact.

Are you expecting posters to do the amount of digging you did on their comps? Personally, I'd rather people had the time spare to post other comps than be caught up in this detective work.

Having some kind of 'blacklist' doesn't work - especially with the TW accounts - as they'll just set up under a new name.

To answer your question... Yes I would like people who post them to look at what they are posting. Rather than people being in a race to put competitions up I think it would benefit the forum if they actually took a few minutes to look at what they are posting... I.E. A lot of comps get posted on here with the wrong end dates because people don't bother reading it properly ( Also aware comps end dates change which can't be helped ). And I noticed it was the same guy who posted the last 2 competitions of the particular Twitter page I was talking about here... So I would of expected them to have seen who the last winner was that got picked out and noticed that the competition and page was bulls*t.

I recognise new companies and comps will pop up all the time and it would be a neverending battle. But, for this particular issue it was something ongoing and easily spottable, just nobody bothers to question it. Don't worry though. If it's too hard for you and others at least you have people like Me and Maine here to save you the trouble.

Snizza · 13 April 2014 at 4:22PM

MaineBlue wrote: »

Been doing a bit of digging
The Football Cafe is based in India, so tbh, I wouldn't bother entering any more of his comps for this reason
It is owned by someone called Sripad Kilikar, who has had various 'dodgy' websites (now all shut down) in the past - many of these have hosted comps such as 'Like this page and you could win an iPad' etc.
Prathamesh Shenoi also lives in India and claims to be a Internet Marketing Consultant and Articles Writer
Make of that what you will; but I will not be entering any more of these (cough) 'competitions'

:T Makes sense lol - And what happened to your boys today Maine? Had money on you winning, now Liverpool are gonna go and win the league

JessicAhh · 13 April 2014 at 7:47PM

I'm sorry that I've obviously offended you or something, judging by your rather rude post, as I'm really not someone who relies on you and MB to "save me the trouble" of research. That's actually really upset me, and I'd rather you asked me if I did research / detective work at all myself.

I think you misconstrued my previous post, if you think I said no one should do the detective work - I just said, I'd rather posters spent time posting comps, rather than trying to work out whether a site is genuine, and then we as compers can decide whether to enter or not.

I do appreciate anyone's detective work, and do my own a lot as well.

But equally, I've covered for KatieL on a Twitter Friday, and if I'd done the work of trying to work out genuine vs not so genuine comps, I would have got hardly any of them posted... Like I said, it's a case of compers making a judgement call - that's not saying it's not right to raise the issue in CCC. I just don't believe that there should be a blacklist, or that we could / should be any more vigilant than we already are - these threads come up frequently in CCC, proving that we are vigilant.

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough in my post over there - I hope this makes more sense; I guess I just don't believe OPs should bear the responsibility / blame for posting comps that aren't genuine. Twitter is an especially difficult forum to monitor, when companies post so many tweets, and not all publicly announce their winners; comps are also often short-lived for only a day or so, and I do believe that I'd rather have the comp on the board to investigate / enter as I see fit, than missing out because someone is doing detective work on every post they make.

That was all I was trying to say, and I think your response could have been much more generous towards me, as a fellow forum user, comper and - strange as it might be to you - someone who also works hard on this forum to help out where comps are concerned. I am really, really hurt that you think I rely on you / MaineBlue to do the detective work for me.

Maybe I'm here to save you the trouble of posting on threads for people to change incorrect titles so you don't miss the comp by it going to Game Over, or maybe I'm here to save you the trouble of being one of the people who requests merges, or one of those who will copy daily Tweet RCs onto the daily RC thread, or one of those who often spots comps posted from companies on the spam list. :rotfl:

Snizza · 13 April 2014 at 8:00PM

The idea of a blacklist for me was so that people don't have to do the work to check if competitions are genuine. If they are able to see directly that such and such a place is fake then they wouldn't have to bother putting their competitions up in the first place and could possibly use some people power to report them. I just really despise liars and I know these people are gaining a lot of followers from this website. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people who run these fake competitions are members of MSE which I am sure has happened in the past.

Apologies if I sounded rude to you but I talk straight on here. I learnt not to be all nice when I made a post about people cheating and using programs to win competitions and specifically named one of those people on here who was cheating and people lept to the defence of the cheaters. To me, any one who posts like they are against any form of "Hotting people up" are probably doing something dodgy themselves.

Moneybot · 13 April 2014 at 8:55PM

I can see where you are coming from but given some posters don't even check to see if the competition has already been posted why would they check a black list?

Also who would decide which sites/companies go on the black list and who would monitor it to make sure that competitors were not adding rival sites?

comping_cat · 13 April 2014 at 9:03PM

There already is a 'blacklist' - if you read Velvet Glove's guide to comping, you will find a big list of suspected 'spam' sites.

If you find one, just PM Velvet Glove, and they will add it to the list.

Blacklist

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