Competitions

[Squirrel]

It seems like whenever I am bored enough to scratch off the foil or look under the label, as if by magic I am a 'Top prize winner.' I know from experience that these prize draw things are a sham ' they have no intention of sending you what they say you 'won' despite your careful scanning of the small print ' but how come they are legal? It seems like the only people who ever win are Mr. and Mrs. Fairweather from Norfolk, who look just a little too much like actors.

[anthomson]

There will be a few genuine prizes but the probability of getting one of these is very, very small and to find out if you have actually one of these you have to make a �5.00+ phone call. Usually you will win 'the holiday' which has so many catches it is just not worth claiming. The first (and last) I tried claiming I won a holiday to Ireland - which didn't include accomodation (fine if you don't mind sleeping in a carboard box) . What is really annoying is that they target children by putting competitions like this in childrens magazines.

[gazzawazza]

Anthomson is right. We once had a call telling us we'd won a holiday (hadn't entered for it!) All we had to do was attend a no-obligation time-share presentation.

As we were going to be in the area on holiday at the time (The Lakes) we decided to go along out of curiosity.

We sat through it and right at the end they offered us the free holiday... You had to be available to go at the drop of a hat, ie. they might ring you up and say your free holiday is tonight and you're flying from... Strangely enough I don't think anyone accepted the holiday...!

[paulz]

An & gazza - couldn't agree more, you just need to remember there's no such thing as a free lunch. And the targetting of kids is outrageous. Are all these comps run by the same company in Lancashire somewhere?

[Lennon]

I agree these things are a nightmare, but they work on the hope that someone somewhere will think 'well, somebodys gotta win it, so why not me' Then, like you say, the �30 phone call to Outer Mongolia (or wherever it is they set up their 'call centres') steps in and there you go, they've got something out of it. I think its really out of order that they target kids as well, as I remember going to my parents with countless scrathcards like that out of magazines etc and telling them we'd won and they kept saying that everyone wins and its all cr@p, but you can't understand it at that age as you think it must be true - poor parents!! :)

[crumblynewt]

I workd with trading standards 4 awhile&askd the same question. It turns out that most of the companies do this, get as many replys as pos (whilst taking all of ur hard earned cash thru phone costs) and then flee & set up the same business but in another name. They usually cant b traced.

[Squirrel]

Thanks for your responses. Now I know where my Tony the Tiger tokens went.