Something I’m seeing a lot of recently on social media are posts advertising all sorts of ‘prize draws’, where you can enter and have a chance of ‘winning’ all manner of prizes, for as little as £3 a ticket.
Oddly enough, these types of post tend to appear as ‘sponsored posts’ usually at the weekend, with some promise of a draw taking place on Sunday evening.
I’ve been considering for some time that most of these ‘prize draws’ are nothing but scams, like many other posts advertising high value goods for sale at ridiculously low prices – sadly many impersonating the high street retailer Wilko – just taking advantage of peoples’ desires to ‘grab a bargain’, especially during a supposed “cost of living crisis” being propagandised by the mainstream media.
The following appeared on my local Birmingham Mail news site yesterday, and now I’m convinced they’re all scams, but sadly people still fall for them.
“Woman scoops luxury £2m villa but only receives £5k due to competition loophole” – Birmingham Mail, 12th Sep 2023A woman who thought she had won a multi-million pound house has been left ‘heartbroken’ after getting just £5,000. Loretta, from Radford, Nottinghamshire, was named as the winner of a prize draw in a video on Win My Home’s website.
A 55-second clip from the competition organisers shows a woman approach Loretta’s home with a bunch of flowers. She is then told “you’re the winner of our Nottingham prize draw”.
But she did not specify what Loretta had won. Loretta thought she had scooped a £2m home in Nottingham’s Park Estate but she was gutted when she told she would not be getting the house.
She had not seen the terms and conditions listed on the website which said if £2.5m of net sales are not reached then the winner will receive 50 percent of the net proceeds, NottinghamshireLive reports. The 35-year-old said: “It was heartbreaking because my property at the moment is a death trap, that’s why I entered it.”
In emails seen by Nottinghamshire Live, competition organisers claimed they had made a loss and awarded the £5,000 as a ‘goodwill gesture’. They said they spent almost £200,000 on ‘marketing costs’ and were unable to process Visa payments ‘for a long time’.
Now to be fair in this instance, this lady did actually win something, though it may not have been what she was expecting.
But how many other ‘prize draws’ take place where there is no actual winner or prize handed out?
Now I’ve never heard of this “Win My Home” website, so clearly the £200,000 they spent on ‘marketing costs’ was clearly wasted – no doubt the likes of Google and Facebook were quids in though through advertising fees.
It does remind me of something I wrote about a couple of years ago now.
Is what started off as a bit of a ‘novelty’ becoming too far widespread now? If you’re hoping to sell your house to someone via the proceeds of a raffle or prize draw, are there simply not enough gullible punters out there now?
Or maybe there are far too many similar ‘prize draws’ offering fantastic items for little outlay?
It’s like I seem to see every month now a company called Omaze giving away £1-2m houses, plus huge amounts of cash, and in order to stand a chance of winning this prize, you just need to buy a ticket to enter the draw, and I forget how much it usually is, around £5 I think.
I see the ‘sponsored posts’ on Facebook, and my first instinct is “it’s a scam!”. After all, I cling fast to the mantra “if it seems too good to be true, then it probably isn’t”.
I mean come on, where are they getting all these million pound properties from to just ‘give away’?
What baffled me initially is that this same company is having it’s prize draws promoted and advertised on mainstream news media websites. But then again, proceeds are being used also to support your usual ‘big charities’, you know, the likes of Marie Curie, MacMillian, NSPCC etc.
Funny how you NEVER hear from or about anyone who has ever won one of these ‘million pound houses’.
Because you’re all being duped. These companies are in league with ‘big charities’ and the mainstream media, they’re all tricking you into parting with your hard-earned money because you ‘believe you have a chance’ of winning.
It might be “only be a few quid”, or in the case of Omaze it’s quite alarming!
Jesus Christ, no wonder this scam is so successful, and no wonder the MSM actively participate in its promotion.
And don’t forget these ‘big charities’ they ‘support’ are not exactly strapped for cash, if they can pay six-figure salaries to chief executives and senior managers, as well as pay for prime advertising spots on TV and billboards.
You’re being rinsed for whatever disposable income you have left at the end of the month, just because it fulfils a desire to own ‘expensive things’ like you see on the telly.
