Listed as competition winner but didn't receive prize

[eiregal]

My mother receives a quarterly household-type magazine with features and competitions. She has recently received the Spring/Summer edition and noticed that she is listed as being a winner in the last edition's competitions. However, she has never received a prize and has received no correspondence whatsoever from the company. She has written to them twice (to a PO Box no.) but hasn't received a reply and we cannot find any contact telephone number for them. Can anyone suggest a next step? It seems to us now that they just use anyone's name as winners and the competitions might not be real.

 

[CMCR]

The Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs has examined this issue in a recent publication entitled '[broken link removed]'?

Their advice reads as follows:

"If you receive an invitation to participate in any type of lottery, sweepstake or prize draw or news that you have won a free holiday and are required to make a payment or purchase to claim your prize you should be very careful.

Often these companies give only a P.O. box number and no geographical address, therefore you have no way of contacting them if they will not respond to your communication by post.

For prize draws you may be required to call a premium rate number in order to claim your prize. This could result in a long phone call and possibly the need to make several other calls before your prize can be won. All Irish premium rate numbers begin with 15."

There is more information on what to do on the ODCA site - I suggest you follow the link above. If you have any further questions you should contact the ODCA directly - ([broken link removed]).

Hope this has been of assistance.

CMCR

 

[ClubMan]

Is she sure that it's her and not somebody else with the same name that they're referring to? For example is there additional information such as a (partial) address that identifies it as her? I know that some publications/junk mail publish winners such as "Joe Murphy, Dublin" or "Mary Smith, Cork" which generally suggests that they are simply made up.

 

[eiregal]

Well her name is not a particularly common name. It states her name and the county we live in. To be honest, there's not many people with the same surname as us here and there's no one with the same name as my mother in the phonebook. It's stated in the magazine that a full list of winners can be obtained by sending off a stamped addressed evelope which we did a couple of weeks ago but still haven't heard anything. Very frustrating.