A friend and I recently entered a competition with Desperados beer to experience a zero-gravity flight in Las Vegas. On a Monday in September I received an email to say we had been selected as backup for the prize – if the winners did not claim it by 9am on the Wednesday, we had won.
On the Tuesday we were asked to send over our passport details and other documentation. We received the full itinerary and it was confirmed over the phone and by email that we were the first people to return all the signed documents, so if the winner didn’t claim the prize by the following morning, we would be selected.
Despite being promised “news” and told that details were being “finalised” we had to chase the company, and on the Friday afternoon I was told an alternative runner-up had been found. Is this sour grapes on our part or have we been unfairly cheated out of the prize? RH, Brighton, East Sussex
We have previously warned readers of the dangers of competitions – typically those involving postcode lotteries – which are a common ruse for direct mail companies to get you to part with personal details or run up bills on premium rate phone numbers. Often supposed “winners” are told by letter or phone message that they have won a prize in a competition they did not even enter. In all cases, if it looks or sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
While this competition does not fall into that category, it is nevertheless a promotional activity carried out under the marketing umbrella of Desperados – a tequila-flavoured beer. We contacted Adam&EveDDB, the communications agency handling this competition and with which you had been dealing, which insisted that you must have misunderstood.
A spokesman said: “As is standard practice for a competition of this nature, ie involving international travel on a specific date, we selected a winner and a number of backups in case the winner could not travel on the required dates. Once it became clear the winner could not accept the prize, we selected the backup with the earliest initial entry into the competition.
“It seems from RH’s email that they may have misunderstood and thought that she was the backup, rather than a backup, but at no point was she told that she had won or been led to believe that they had won.”
The flights to Las Vegas are next week, so the company insists it had to arrange a firm fall-back situation.
While this was definitely not a scam and you are not out of pocket, the brutal reality is that competitions like this attract huge interest. You will apparently be receiving a gift (along with all the other slightly bruised backups) to thank you for taking part.
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