First you need to view a new competition posted this month to activate the points system. Then refresh the home page to get todays daily random points. Have you tried this?
Bit surprised both not aware of that as not new members.
@ivankuss Hmmmmm so viewed/entered a competition that was posted this month in August then refreshed the home page I.e competitions.com.au . Have you tried different browsers incase something to do with disable JavaScript etc? You might have to check settings if JS enabled.
Looks like the daily random points are back to 1-50 points. Thou the terms : 1 - 10 points - Visit the homepage every day and a random amount of points will be automatically added.
The 1-10 daily points would of worked well if the birthday bonus wasn't so high. It placed a lot greater emphasis on viewing the competitions. With a 1-10 daily random points a birthday bonus of 20 and add a 4th place might work. I done a rough look into with a variety of birthday bonus. Need to make some changes in regard to Rank positition method on the leader board works annoying slightly different from the Rank function. Has a slight effect when you got equal winners which was around a few percent of the time with last month system.
@admin Didn't know there was a actual account called admin. Is this the official admin profile or a profile posing as the admin? Welcome to the forum. :).
Those damn cockroaches multiple like crazy. Sure, you're not confusing the features with bugs?
Having a small group each month with almost a 100% of all prizes, surely couldn't be desirable feature. If that's the case need to change name to the birthday leaderboard. With 10 random daily points and 50 birthday bonus points doesn't give non birthday members a reasonable chance. It needs to be scrapped until you can work out a reasonable birthday bonus. Educated guess it would about 10-20 points maximum. Would be a logical mathematical way to determine it depending of how much of an influence expecting to achieve. Eg Probably less the difference between the expected top positition score and top quartile score. Rougly 50/50 chance between birthday and non birthday be looking around 15-20 points and adding a 4th prize.
I started documenting my wins this year and I'm amazed how much i have actually won! before it was kinda random and i had no idea. WoW some incredible prizes and cash. i'm wondering if anyone else documents their wins and how? I write win # 1 2 3 etc then value and which company and total for the year in my diary, is there a more efficient way I'm not into apps or spreadsheets???
Not really. I just keep all the winning congratulations letters. I have draws full over the years. I have culled the minor prize letters though and kept the bigger prize letters. Or e-mails in a folder to keep. :)
I run a spread sheet that covers all my entries, if it's a win then I move the prize to a different column ... sadly I've hit the dry spell. Prior to that I've won a few movie tix, entries to festivals and managed one DVD lol
@Anna2077 That's impressive - I haven't started documenting each entry i put in yet - perhaps i should so i can look out for the results, and i suppose the response too (so i remember what i say and perhaps reword it for other entries could save lots of time)
I have a spreadsheet for comp entries which has a page for wins (plus WOL entry if applicable). I save win emails in a label/folder in my email and posted letters in a draw. Only 10 wins in 2 years so it is not too taxing to keep track of them :)
@Andieharrie I log each entry after I enter... it's a simple spread sheet, should work on it to make it a bit more comprehensive.... will leave it for xmas time :-)
I added up mine earlier this year. I agree it is surprising when you look at the list and helps me to stay motivated when I haven't won anything for a few weeks.
@Anna2077 Pain & Persistence lessens Resistance is my motto. Hang in there. Your day will come soon. You're probably just building yourself up for a HUGE win.
I've got a book in which I write down the prize and sometimes where it came from, if i know. I don't keep track of entered comps tho. I'm lazy so I try and keep it simple.
@gaseja Nice to win something from time to time. A book, movie ticket, CD, DVD, dinner ... it's a gift even if you put some work into getting it :-) A win is a win... hoping to win Nutribullet for birthday, iPad or a mixer for Easter...
Nice to win a few luxurious items that buying is not a priority but you eventually buy if you need it.... right now Nurtirbullet would have come in handy as I have both writs inflamed and using a blender is out of the question ...
I have a word document where I keep all my WOL answers, and a couple of excel spreadsheets showing comps I've entered and their end dates, and which comps I won.
I used to be the sort of person that thought, "Why bother entering, you NEVER Win".
I decided to try though, and now 2 years and 500 Wins later I'm CELEBRATING with my 500th Win today being;
A TRIP TO GREECE!
Which only goes to show how Lucky you can be, and no, I didn't sell my Soul to do it. There is no picture of me hanging hidden in some locked attic somewhere that ages that bit more every time I Win. I won't deny though, I DO like Black Cats, you could say that I'm 'familiar' with them . . .
So go to it, this site's FULL of entry forms and Comps.
Wow massive congrats @Inwithachance! Your success is really encouraging to show it can be done!
How do you do it? What is your secret?
I've been comping for 2 years also. But in a huge contrast to your mind-blowing 500 wins, i've only won 10 prizes in 2 years! Mostly DVDs/books and nothing over $100 value. I enter an average of 250 comps per month. I enter both WOL and simple entry but not the 'get the highest votes' type comps. Do you have any tips you'd be willing to share?
@bbjsr Thanks. Luck is Luck. I'm still pinching myself over all my Wins. Random draws I Win. WOL I Win. No matter how good your entry is, another judge/s on another day may have picked someone else OR if that one more person had entered they might have chosen them instead. Good to hear you find it encouraging. The whole point of my mentioning it IS just that, to encourage. I am the first to admit, ULTIMATELY it is ALL Luck. I mean it's not as if I'm a Warlock or anything. . . Good Luck to YOU! : )
@Inwithachance nah , your king ! ive read your 25 words of less before , your pretty awesome at it. Enjoy your trip ! have you won any other holidays before?
That's weird, I hit the link and the following came up: Sorry, you have reached the daily vote limit (3 per 24h). Please come back later! Do you know what that is all about?
I am receiving double emails from competitions.com.au. Is this normal? I receive up to 8 emails each day from here and they are usually in identitical pairs. For example, yesterday I received 2 about an iPod Nano, 2 about a Samsung home theatre package etc. Is this happening to anyone else? Is it a minor glitch that can be fixed somehow? Apologies if this is a known issue which has been discussed before in the forum. I looked but couldn't find anything. Any help would be much appreciated :) Thank you!
We're nearing the end of the month for the first month of the changes. Out of interest, I just had a quick look at the leaderboard (yes, I know I'm not going to win!). All of the top 5 people (as at this point) have received the birthday-bonus this month. To the regular leaderboard watchers in particular, is this normal? What are everyone's thoughts? What do you all think should happen going forward?
I'd prefer if they got rid of it altogether, but I can understand that they want to give everyone a chance of winning something at least once during the year and share the prizes around a bit.
Also, as they are now giving extra guesses in the guessing comp down to 50th position it is unlikely that anyone using the site on a daily basis will miss out on that opportunity.
What I would love to see happen, is for people to stop using catch phrases "going forward," at the end of the day, laugh out loud, in saying that, you want fries with that, have a nice day, bro!
Hi @Annaar, with the guessing game the extra guesses are applied the following month. So if you placed in the top 20 in June you should be getting extra guesses this month. And if you place in the top 50 in July you will get an extra guess every day in August.
Yes, everyone with birthdays during the month will have a much bigger chance of winning now. I don't see anything wrong with that as the leaderboard should be friendly place for all and there are plenty of competitions out there. I'd like to see the leaderboard extended to show the first 50 and hope that people will still stay active or even more active in the forum. :) Anyone else have any thoughts?
@fourleaf Hmmmmm .... trying to channel nice thoughts.
Given 5 birthdays in a month with a bonus 50 points and 50 members, what do you think the rough chance for the ALL members without a birthday, anyone of them winning a prize? I.e for first, second or third.
Without any bithday bonus each member would roughly have a 6% chance of winning a prize each month.
Any guesses? Will post the simulated results tonight.
@Lemond, Yes the chances of a place are low....and let's hope any duplicate accounts or amended birthdays get picked up by admin -I'd hope they would have a system to pick this up.
If it isn't your birthday month you need to be a wafer thin mint to get under the limbo stick to win!
Generally I like the changes for reducing the random daily points to 10 as it puts emphasis on viewing the competitions posted. The current birthday bonus of 50 points however, "may" need to be adjusted or scrapped.
If it's your birthday month what would you think would be reasonable odds to win a prize given the following example of 50 members and 5 with a birthday?
I've updated a spreadsheet to reflect the changes to the leader board competition to simulate the approximate chances of winning a prize for birthdays and non birthdays. Will post up the statistics for the chances later today. Thou from this month results it's typical what to expect.
Spoiler! The approximate chances for the example above between ALL of the 45 members getting a third prize when it isn't their birthday month is about once a year!
I've got a friend whose birthday is this month and she's not even in the top 3 cos she has had low points every day. I think Birthday points need to be scrapped as it is definitely unfair to all other ppl for that month...I personally liked the other system, of 1-50 points random, much more fun (or frustrating lol) maybe they could scrap the birthday points and do random points of 1-30 per day. Either way it's just for fun and an additional bonus to a site already finding comps for us and saving us heaps of time, just hope they amend it so it is fairer for everyone as it is one of my favourite things to try to climb the leaderboard.
Yes, 50 points for a birthday is a big chunk of the total now. Maybe 20 or 30 points might make everyone feel they might still be in the running...@Lemond looking forward to seeing your results!
@fourleaf Just making some minor changes to the spreadsheet to allow for multiple types of analysis at once. I was looking into what birthday bonus might be reasonable to compare a bonus of 0, 50 and random (1-20) bonus.
Possibly a random birthday bonus in a range (10-25) might be a reasonable solution. I think anything over around 20 is too high looking at the spread of values. Once you start getting over 4 birthdays in a month and giving a too high of a bonus it basically locks out everyone else having any chance. I'm thinking a random birthday bonus might even it out a touch as 50% of them (2-3) would have a bonus from (17-25). It's a fine balance with the birthday bonus for what is a reasonable. Overall thinking for the birthday group a 50% chance is more then "fair".
I have also done a spreadsheet of the the expected scores for each rank for a month excluding birthdays this might give a better indication what could be an appropriate birthday bonus. Each rank position would be roughly equate to 2%.
The snapshot of the simulated average scores for each rank generated from 100 trails. given: 31 days, 50 members, 10 daily random points,
Rank   Median Min Max 1   206      190   241 2   200      185   218 3   197      184   209 4   194      183   204 5   192      182   200 6   190      181   198 7   189      181   196 8   187      180   196 9   186      178   193 10   185      177   193 11   184      176   193 12   183      175  193 13   182      173   190 14   181      172   189 ... 49   141   126  150 50   134      116  149
The average monthly score is 170 to 171 i.e. (10+1)/2*31 = 170.5 . Now as an average score is 171 if got 5 of more birthdays good chance are 2 will be above the average of 171 which clearly top the ladder. For the one case in the simulation that came equal first the score was 217. So in that case all 5 birthday scores were below the average and the winning total was well average it's average. Odds of that (0.5^5) = 3.1%. or once every 32 months. Note however the average winning score is 206.
Notes maximum for rank 1 possible is 300 and rank 50 would be 31. Scores/chances taper dramatically at at 220 and 120.
I have done a simulation of 200 trails for the top results. Given: 50 members 5 Birthdays in a month 10 daily random points 31 days
Number of Prizes Birthday Non Birthday Total 1st: 209 1 210 2nd: 196 3 199 3rd : 180 20 200 Total 585 24 609
Birthday Breakdown for the 5 members 1st 2nd 3rd Total P1 36Â Â Â 32Â Â Â 40Â Â Â 108 P2 40Â Â Â 53Â Â Â 27Â Â Â 120 P3 47Â Â Â 36Â Â Â 37Â Â Â 120 P4 44Â Â Â 27Â Â Â 40Â Â Â 111 P5 42Â Â Â 48Â Â Â 36Â Â Â 126
Overall Chance for a month Birthday V Non Birthdays Birthday Non Birthday 1st: 99.5% 0.5% 2nd: 98.5% 1.5% 3rd : 90% 10% Avg 96% 4%
For an individual Birthday V Non Birthdays Birthday Non Birthday 1st: 19.9% 0.01% 2nd: 19.7% 0.03% 3rd : 18% 0.22% Avg 19.2% 0.09%
Birthday Rank Top 5 Rank Total 2 equal win 3 equal win Total 1Â Â Â 192 7 1Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 200 2Â Â Â 180Â 8 0Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 188 3Â Â Â 166Â Â Â 7 0Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 173 4Â Â Â 157Â Â Â 8Â Â Â 0Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 165 5Â Â Â 103Â Â Â 3Â Â Â 0Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 106
Non Birthday Rank Total 2 win 3 win 1Â Â Â 1# 0 0 2Â Â Â 3 0 0 3Â Â Â 20 0 0 4Â Â Â 35 0 0 5Â Â Â 85 0 0
Overall Rank Total 2 win 3 win Total 1Â Â Â 191Â Â Â 8Â Â Â 1Â Â Â Â Â Â 200 2Â Â Â 183Â Â Â 8Â Â Â 0Â Â Â Â Â Â 191 3Â Â Â 182Â Â Â 9Â Â Â 0Â Â Â Â Â Â 191 4Â Â Â 174Â Â Â 17Â Â Â 0Â Â Â Â Â Â 191 5Â Â Â 171Â Â Â 11Â Â Â 1Â Â Â Â Â 183
Maximum of three* prizes per month awarded i.e if three first places then no other prizes; two first places then next prize was 3rd awarded. This is why the number of prizes for 2nd and 3rd are less then 200. Modifying it to award all 3 prizes has a minor overall impact on non birthdays. *One case of 4 prizes for month with 2 third place for birthday month.
Notes: #For the one winner for non birthdays there was a shared winner with a birthday winner.
@fourleaf @admin Regarding duplicate accounts there was one suspicious new account last month. A bit of a coincidence joined on the first of the month, it was their birthday month, had no issue with the nuances of the first day, had the most viewed competitions for the month and since end of last month gone quiet. The naming of the profile also seems 'familiar'. Now could be a logical explanation for all those coincidences.
For a new member they seemed very adept with the site and any nuances.
Nothing wrong with joining on your birthday month and going quiet until their next birthday. The new system of 10 random daily points for the leader board and having 50 birthday bonus points could encourage new members to join up on their birthday month, then possible go AWOL for 12 months. Also existing members more likely to drift off as their is virtually no chance in non birthday months. I would imagine it would be very tempting for members to create "birthday" accounts.
Some things to note which could just be statistically variability, there were a high proportion of birthdays on the leader board then usual last month. On average would expect 1/12 members. The new system probably had the effect of discouraging existing non birthday members. Just a rough observation for members that got all the daily points for the month.
@lemond, @admin :) Yes I noticed, let's hope it was a coincidence. My concern is that people can also change their birthday on existing accounts as well. I'm sure it will be picked up and the first three on the leaderboard checked.
@fourleaf Last month was dropping that hint regarding that profile. Not surprised it's gone quiet since the end of the month after being so active. The current system promotes that. One of negative consequence of having such a biased system.
I didn't realize you could update your birthday details. Hopefully that would be easily picked up if a log of updates to the profile are recorded. It would be interesting what type of checks are done. If determined enough could get around most of the common methods. Using statistics might highlight any abnormalities or connections between suspected accounts. It would depend on what sort of logs are kept and how long. Like I stated could be coincidence or a link to an existing profile. Note doesn't mean it's a duplicate account could be a logical explanation.
Do they ask for proof of ID when you win? That should deter most forms of circumventing checks.
OMG the comping Gods must be very happy with me at the moment. Have won a $200 Eco Toys voucher, which will be amazing for the kids for Christmas presents & a $185 Hair care products pack. So grateful for the wins!!! Hope you all are having some luck too :)
Hi Everyone, I am needing some Instagram tag buddies. My handle is: growingsnowballs I promise to follow you back. There seems to be a LOT of Instagram competitions around at the moment.
As Im new to comping, Im wondering what the likelihood of winning is. I have started entering on a daily basis ( about 200 comps so far). Could i be hoping for a win in the coming weeks, months or ever. Im spending about an hour a day and am wondering if its worth it.
It's a numbers game @brendai As the saying goes "The harder I try, the luckier I get". As long as you enter at least one comp per day, everyday consistently, you will win something.
Sold a big chunk of my prize collection over the past week. I'm a tad strapped for cash so it was good, and selling brand new items such as dvds still wrapped for $5 etc, it's good to see people getting a bargain and the items going to good use :) I know many people have many unique opinions on selling items that have been won.. but I do it and will continue to do so :) hope everyone's having a lucky July!
I never sell anything. I either give it away for presents or keep it for myself. I enter to win things that I like to use or give to my children. I haven't won anything for awhile either @Annaar. Someone must be winning tho!
My opion on selling is I don't enter purely to sell, I hate people who make up families etc to win to sell. I have however sold unwanted/unneeded items and duplicated items - it's great when you need the cash & sometimes you need the money more than you need a new toaster or a DVD - good luck to you - :)
The past year or so I've used my wins for birthday gifts, christmas presents, mothers day, it's really nice to be able to treat my family with stuff I wouldn't normally be able to afford. If only there were more competitions to win money, id be set. Yes that's it, things I've won and won't use or gift go towards my bills and to make life a little less stressful. And I like selling cheap on the local buy and sell sites, so someone else who perhaps couldn't afford the item brand new is able to get it at a cheaper price so win win situation :)
@SMary92 if you can make like less stressful for yourself why wouldn't you. You've obviously had some luck, but sometimes a paid electricity bill or an unforeseen bill paid is of much better use to you. I recently won something of a high value That I desperately needed, but it was the opposite to what I needed (they didn't specify the exact specifications you would win) anyway the person who rang me to organise delivery suggested if she wasn't able to change it for me that I look to sell it and buy something I would be able to use. It was great I have never heard of a company suggesting that, they understood I was grateful but it didn't suit my needs. Turned out they swapped it for one I would use, but still was shocked that she suggested it and happy they understood - sometimes money in your hands is far more useful
Well...my luck must be changing. I just received an e-mail stating I just won a Go Pro Hero 4. It was a provisional winning prize and sigh...I all ready have one. I'm still grateful though. I might decide to keep it as back up or give it to one of my adult children for Christmas. I know my son really would love one as they are not cheap to buy. Looking up! :)
@Alittlebitoffun I am very selective about what I enter but what is advertised and what you receive are not always up to my expectation so I will be selling some items when I get around to it. I do agree entering for the sake of winning something is just crazy.
Due to my dry spell (just over 2 months) I've been reading online advice. One site suggested that July should be busy for compers as it comes on the back of EOFY.
I've not noticed an increase in comps posted. Has anyone?
Good pick up @bj74! So competition commences 17 July and ends 22 July. BUT entries must be received by 15 July. Yep makes perfect sense! Major proofreading fail there :) Technically speaking, there would be no eligible entries... so what happens in cases like this?
If you read the T&Cs of the Travel Talk competition with the Rocky Mountaineer rail journey it says "Entry is open to Australian travel agents only". So unless you are, it's not worth entering.
I love reading your blog Nicole but every time I bring it up, the first 12 lines or so are covered with the Social Media icons. Is anyone else having this problem?
My favourite saying is "The harder I try, the luckier I get".
Sigh 16 daily points from 4 days. How the hell still in top 20. Lol. Hmmm ok what's up with the random daily points. Been crook so haven't been keeping a rough eye on it has it changed to max 10 daily points.?
@Annaar ok just noticed the change in the terms etc. hmmm and 50 points for your birthday. God should of converted by mate to comping and join it's their birthday today. Well that's going to kill the leaderboard competition. I will have to wait till next April :( Least it's still got a friendly forum.
For the first time (possibly the last time) worked at the Federal Election. Absolutely bug#3red! Started at 6 am Saturday morning, hobbling into bed at 4:30 am Sunday morning. 2IC at my local polling station. Needless to say, I've been off my comping game. On an LOL front, that doco I was in for the St Kilda film festival ended up showing at the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, and was (apparently) crowd favourite. Umm...Have doubled the security detail, and worked out alternate routes to evade the paparazzi! ;)
@toxicgherkin Big hug. @Annaar Sounds like @toxicgherkin doesn't give a damn who won that voting competition. Just hand him a bottle of whiskey.
Looks like the only suggestion made to this site was your quip regarding not winning in your birthday month. See you back in December to claim it. :).
Hmmm were the terms updated in the last day to max of 10 for the daily random points? I suspect it could of been unintentional and was only noticed after a few days so have stuck with it. I.e. The first of Feb it was temporarily had set limits until fixed late that night. The could of made an announcement of the change leading up to the start of the month and got feedback etc. For approx 92% of members each month the leaderboard comp has become irrelevant if it's 50 bonus points for a birthday. Maybe a "fairer" bonus give an extra daily guess for the month for the guessing game.
Yes a new one has been started, but when I wrote the original message that was not the case. They still had the "old" one, which was supposedly drawn on the 1/7/16 but they still had it up on the 3/7/16 when I first posted my note. So my message is a bit null and void now.
Cheers for that... I was avoiding looking at competitions all day as I thought the points wouldn't be attributed. After all that waiting got rewarded with 1 bonus random point, haha, devastating.
The new system of 10 daily points being the maximum is ok as it rewards those more who view all the competitions and participate daily in the guessing game, but it now disproportionately rewards those who have a birthday during the month as they still get 50 points.
oh wow... I didn't notice the daily points system had changed, now they just need to get rid of birthday points to make it fair. I didn't mind the other way, it was random and I'm wondering how it will work now, if a lot of ppl will share the winning money.
Argh turn my back for a few days. Will have to check the spreadsheet and what effect birthdays would have etc. Rough guess massive! Think the effect could be classified as "unfair", if the birthday bonus points remained at 50 points. Will double check later on exact effect, intuition is saying don't bother. Lol
@bops18 It would be great/professional if the @admin notified and updated the terms and conditions for the daily random points to reflect this. Either a reoccurring abnormality in the daily random point system or it's a failure to notify and update the terms and conditions. Hmmm now for a "competitions" forum site they may of crossed the event horizon some time back towards the black hole of 'unprofessionalism'. As no light can escape a black hole this can not be confirmed! @Admin will need to break all known laws of science to escape intact if they have indeed slipped past the point of no return.
@spyglass agreed ! From the top of my head would guess at the end of the month the spread of random points be around +_ 30 points from the average total daily points. Statistically 'guaranteeing' all those with birthdays to end up in the top positions. Assuming don't miss too many viewed competitions and bithday bonus remains at 50 points etc. Now if indeed the daily random points has been permanently altered to (1-10) for every missed competition, for everyone else this probably results in a drop of one spot on the leaderboard at the end of the month. Miss around 25 competitions would expect unlikely to make the top 20. Will check later on my spreadsheet what the expected results would be statiscally.
Dear Brookmaree93, I tried but I can't see it. I sing in " shop a dock " and I click Living Room Picture . I can't find it. What should I do , so I can find the enter form . Thank you.
I tried but I only seen Ten Play competition page , I used Living Room page -shop a Doc but I can't see it. I went to Net Rewards but I still seen Living Room page . I don't know what I did wrong. Thank you very much .
Hello, please could you take a minute to vote for my sons soccer teams photo. It's to win a well needed Grant for his club. We have to make it to the top 10 votes by midnight tonight. Thank you :) https://tradablebits.com/tb_app/435659?record_id=114558171
- TMNT movie double pass - saucy novel by Argentinian polo player playboy-turned romance novelist, Nacho Figueras (sounds like gourmet corn chips, an exotically sounding sherry or a drinking salute!), and - DVD of 'The Sound of Music Live!'
Congratulations! Sounds like a term used to decribe loosing your figure because of eating too many nachos....... (Some paint and a paint brush for me this week) :)
I can not find enter form for Living Room competition ( Shop A Doc). I sing in Shop A Doc and nothing happened. Please kindly to help me . Ten Play Competition form does not have enter form for Living Room too. Thank you very much.
Everyone I know loves chocolate so I have put one entry only. However I did notice in the T&Cs "Only one entry permitted per person, per day". So I reckon there will be lots of people putting in multiple entries.
Where 25 words or less comps have thousands of entries (e.g. travel prizes) do you think that they actually read and judge all the entries and choose the best entry (in their opinion) or do they save time and just draw an entry at random and if the answer is half reasonable give that the prize? Or even another method?
If they actually go through and read thousands or even tens of thousands of entries, that is an awful lot of unproductive time for a worker who I'm sure has better things to do.
My understanding is that most people avoid WOL comps, so they don't get tens of thousands of entries... if I'm wrong then @lemond and @toxicgherkin will correct me.
I won one comp where they called me and told me they liked my answer...
On fb I've noticed that random entries win. guessing they have a search engine look for a particular word.
Some comps only select people with names like Smith, Charles, Brown. Citizen etc.
Perfume, candles, accessories get a LOT of entries on fb.
I've entered a few FB competitions where they have very basic information regarding the entry terms, just a simple "tell us in 25 words or less..." and then when they choose a winner they come out with "congrats John Smith you were randomly selected out of all entries..." which is super frustrating.
I have won a few 25 WOL that I put 0% thought or effort into, and I've also lost heaps of 25 WOL despite being 100% confident.
And then I avoid the ones with 1,000s of entries for a small candle because it is a waste of time in my opinion.
Hot tip: get started on the LG Red Balloon giveaway on FB. Hundreds of entries, but they do go through them and choose creative winners (they like every one, assuming they do that to keep track of entries). Plus you may enter once a day with a unique entry, improves chances of being seen.
On Facebook it can be confusing when there isn't clear terms and conditions, if it's a skills or random draw.
JBHI had one recently with 500ish responses for a WOL on FB. It took them a few extra days to sort through before announcing the winners. Looked like they went for the sob stories on that one. KISS principle for WOL and something that stands out. Depends on who the judges are etc.
Occasional have seen some badly run WOL competitions with plagiarism and going over the word limit. Well they won initially before they promoter got set upon by comping forums.
I think WOL are popular as they don't require a permit in the majority of the cases. I wouldn't expect to see thousands of entries. Generally wouldn't see more then about 500 if it's a popular retailer.
If you read through The terms and conditions generally it will say judged on creativity etc or random draw, saying that though, I'm sure some as random, and usually the answer doesn't even answer the question asked
I won a trip to Canada a few years ago with 25 WOL, entered on the last day and have no idea how they picked my entry, but there was nearly 1000 entries I found out later. The Uluru trip recently won was also WOL, but still at a loss for a winning formula, maybe original (I never use anything from the net, or formula), I always go for humour and think of something a bit out there. It all depends on what tickles the judges.
@bj74 I entered an fb comp recently. They wanted to know favorite scene from the movie and why... the guy who won only mentioned the movie and how much he loves it and how often he watches it..
Wasn't a bad win for him... hotel accommodation and tix to something or rather...
Have noticed as well that some sob stories win, even though all the advice I've read that no one likes sob stories.
@Annaar Being a SMITH, if this was true (and I don't believe it is) I'd be winning them all and I'm not. It is just luck for some competitions and for others, the judges do take their competitions seriously and do the right thing and go on originality. Sure I get a bit antsy when I see a "winning" answer and say to myself WTF but that is just luck of the draw. You can't win them all. It is just a numbers game. The more you enter, the more chances in life you have.
I know it's a numbers game, but I'm still selective as there is no point in me entering a comp and may be winning something I don't want nor have use for. Most people I know don't deserve expensive presents LOL
Have a look at the winners names from time to time....
I've thought same when I looked at some of the winners answers, then again may be the judge would have answered same.
As soon as I'm back at work and put some money away, I'll get the mixer I want and stop entering the comps... been trying to win it for a few years and still no luck... time to buy it me thinks.
Do most WOL competitions (and I'm not talking FB ones but larger ones for holidays) publish the winners answers? I've hardly ever seen what the winners have written, but then again I haven't looked too hard.
@gaseja On that note. I've got 50 international gleam comps I've found and planning to do today. lol. They are mainly for electronics and cash. On Facebook I get swamped with competitions for woman products. That constantly passing them on.
You've been helpful bringing up how compers keep organized. It has got me to tweak how I manage my competitions. :) Mainly I do with with bookmarks and end date.
The issue I'm having doing international competitions is managing different time zones. Got a lot of deadlines for the daily bonus entries. Tonight I've decided to add the time zone to prioritize which competitions to do first each day. I might start putting each one in separate folders. Got india, UK, USA are the main ones and yeh Australia.
Another idea for managing your Facebook ones is to do a pvt share and put date as reminders. Exploring using unique tags to help manage them also for sharing. I haven't got around to posting up competitions in the forum for a couple of months. I usually just share them to my FB list of compers. Looking at using tags for sharing.
Generally no you don't see the winning answers, sometimes fb ones and I did see a virgin australia one which the winner didn't even answer the question ( said judged, I say random lol)
I think it depends on the company - i have won 2 x big 25 or less comps this year one with hatchette Australia and the other was banana boat - i'm not sure there was 1000's of entries but the prizes were fabulous and worth me taking the time to do it well. other times i see over 25 words and entries not well thought out winning (those ones i think are random) though I've also seen some pretty nasty fallout from the serious compers.
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