Daily General Sweepstakes & Contest Discussion

[crackercrumb]

General Sweepstakes & Contest Discussion

Have a question regarding a sweepstakes or contest? Then this threads for you!

Having difficulty with a sponsor? Curious about certain rules or laws? Wondering if and how often someone wins from a particular site? Need some encouragement after a "dry spell' or not yet winning? Need some tricks or tips? Have some contest news you'd like to share? Have questions about prize delivery? Want to let us know about a scam? Curious about a scam?

All that and in between.

Won a prize? Let us congratulate you here!.
Need a UPC? Check this out! (**Need a UPC for that Contest, check this out**).
Need help posting? You need to read this! (New!!!! Contest Forum On How To Post)

Thanks & good luck!

[hippychic]

I just wanted to warn anyone who may have received an e-mail claiming to be from Yahoo/MSN, stating you've won a lottery. It's a scam. I didn't reply to it, & actually called the Fraud Squad of the RCMP this morning to be sure they're aware of this scam. They are quite aware & said several people have already fallen victim to this fraud. The e-mail asks for personal information such as full name, address, fax number, phone number etc. The police told me the next step in the scam is to ask for banking information to send the prize of $820 000.00 pounds (UK currency) to your account. The police recommended just deleting the e-mail, as they are already investigating it, & do not need to be contacted unless you've been taken in by the scam.
I only use this site to get my contest links, so I'm not sure which contest link was the scam to get my e-mail address, but I just wanted to warn all of you, since the letter seems very legitimate (except for the part where they tell you not to tell anyone you've won, in case it causes a double claim on your prize) hahaha. Anyway, happy contesting & be safe.

[beigewood]

interesting, thanks. I get SO MUCH wierd spam that sometimes I wonder if I am missing out on legitimate win's because I don't even read a lot of what I get...

Thanks for the heads up!

[roswell]

i get about 100 of these types a day you cant really get rid of them just a pain in the butt

[dewinner]

I know what you mean roswell I get more junk mail than actual emails!

[hippychic]

I wasn't sure what I was doing when I posted the warning about Yahoo/MSN, but thanks for putting it in the right spot for me.

I have a couple of questions..........I've only been contesting for about 6 or 7 weeks, so far all I've won is advanced screening movie tickets a couple of times. I've been entering alot of contests & multiple times when it's allowed, (dailies) but was wondering how often someone who contests daily, wins, & how often it's a fairly large win (something worth over $100). And has anyone here ever won on contests like Sweet Piggy or New Woman online? I wasn't sure if it was worth the time to enter them.

I also wanted to say, this is the best contest/freebie site I've found, & the only one I look at multiple times a day. I've checked out several others, but this one had the best information, was best organized & is easy to use & to navigate. Thanks for running such an awesome site, I've sent several friends here already.

[roswell]

i have never heard of anyone winning off those, but i dont know if that is just because it is mostly american?? i used to enter them, but i find there are more than enough product sites tv sites etc on here i enter hundreds per day so dont really need to go to those, and yes while we win lots of little things , and lots of free stuff, the big wins do come, just not as often, my laptop from a dell contest just came a couple weeks back, people win all kinds of stuff, you have to be patient and you have to enter alot, remeber one contest can run anywhere from a week to a year, then a month to get the email, so you may invest a year of daily entering into one contest, instant wins are fast and easy, so if not much time try those, local contests better odds, but you never know, the dell contest had 20's of thousands of entries , i think iplayed 6 times , go figure , hang in there , if you are limited for time, just be choosy and enter ony for what you want and only from sites you are sure of , in the talking it up i think there is a thread about who has won from where, it gives you a taste , and there are lots who didnt tell us so many many more , a good month for me is in the 1000's worth of prizes a bad month is in the hundreds

[crackercrumb]

SCAM ALERT!

I wanted to post this since many of us enter Oprah sweepstakes & the scam has even been addressed on Oprah.com (http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahdotcom/scams). You can read more about the scam on Snopes. You can never be to careful.

http://www.snopes.com/fraud/contest/oprah.asp

[hippychic]

Thanks so much for answering my question so quickly Roswell. Wow, a bad month is in the hundreds! Do you mind if I ask how many contests you enter in the course of a month? Do you enter every contest, or just the ones that the prize interests you?
I've been spending a few hours a day entering contests, instead of reading bad news in the paper & watching so much TV (which is what i used to do with my spare time). I hope it turns out to be more productive than wasting time on TV & bad news that's depressing.
Oh & i have another question.....when there's a link to a contest that's over, or the link isn't good, should I be reporting that to someone, or just leave it as it is?

[crackercrumb]

Hey hippychic,

One piece of advice I have is be persistent, keep a positive attitude and appreciate even the smallest of wins. I used to enter every kind of dailies everyday, about 120 DVD dailies & approximately 60-70 other kinds of dailies. Another piece of advice is locals are your best friend. I win a lot of my prizes on locals, if you live in Toronto, don't enter them, I don't need any more competition . I used to sweep about 4 hours a day, maybe more sometimes. I haven't been sweeping for a full year, but from what I hear the beginning of the year & the end of the year are bad for sweeping. Also, another negative thing about sweeping lately is, a lot of people are out of work, so more people are sweeping, which unfortunately is more competition which equals less prizes. Since the economy is poor, there are less good sweeps as well. Things will pick up eventually & I can't wait until they do. I don't enter Sweet Piggy contests, although I'll share them, since I find they look a bit spammy. I haven't head of New Woman, lol.

You can see my wins in my signature. I haven't updated, but I have won maybe 5 contests this month, nothing large, though I appreciate them all. I won the laptop on an instant win. It was the exact same laptop I planned on buying & it was from an instant win. I enter on the last day of the contest, wasn't even going to enter, was so excited. I enter every contest. I have made over $600 selling some of my prizes & have been able to buy lots of other stuff I want to buy. I have considered giving some of the prizes away as MOC's (Members Only Contests), but can't afford to ship the prizes right now. In a course of a month I probably enter over 500 contests.

As for expired contests, you can just leave them. Report a double posted contest if you see it, but the expired contests we usually go through once a week or more.

I won a local play prize pack, which included dinner & tickets to a show. Sold the tickets for $75 & took my friend out to dinner for her birthday. Her meal was over $50, so totally worth it! Another local I won was a skiing trip, which was awesome! The place was beautiful.

[hippychic]

Thanks alot for all the info crackercrumb. Don't worry I won't be entering too many Toronto area contests, since I live in Kingston...lol. I go to Toronto a few times a year, but not often enough to have alot of use for wins of things to do (movies, concerts etc) in Toronto. I recently won tickets for the pre screening of the Hannah Montana movie, but gave them to a friend, because you had to see the movie in Ottawa (where my friend lives). I'll keep being patient & hope that a bigger win will eventually come my way, thanks for sharing your experiences with me. Congrats on your wins.......the laptop win is pretty nice & ecspecially since you were about to buy the same one...lol. That's pretty cool. I think if I won a ski trip, I'd be hanging out in the chalet though....last time I downhill skiied, I dislocated my shoulder...lol. Glad it was an awesome experience for you.

[roswell]

ya and i took me over a year to sort out good contests from bad, and how to be efficient and enter for only things i want , except single entries i do ALL those as they are quick easy then you forget about them , and if you are lucky you win, i am still learning stuff everyday and right now trying to learn the blog contests but not even sure if i am doing those right yet ,and eventually a big win will come , i find summer is much better than winter , people are busy lots of wins in the summer and yes i agree the economy is making it harder , as the weather gets better , more wins to be had, hang in there , look at dewinners win list the last few months she has been on a streak and it seems to come like that too all at once then a dry spell dont know why LOL

[dewinner]

Glad to see you guys or girls we never know on here because I have 2 questions
1-I'm getting frustrated it seems between my in box and contests im spending 10hs a day min on the computer i must be doing something wrong i do not enter any spammy ones or ones where you have to search to much could it be orginizational skills?I have everything in seperate folders eg daily,weekly etc. maybe some one knows an easier way and how many hrs do you guys really spend?
2-I did not know there was a monthly contest for us or a feed dah did not even know the first page existed !How do you scan the site for new contests and posts?Are their more surprises on here?Also tried to install share bar and add a link to my web page didn't work because I do not know what im doing does anyone know?
Now that i wrote a novel i hop some one can help me.THANKS

[roswell]

i still get lost on here from time to time and i still find new things all the time but my contests take most of my time so dont get to all the places unless i am bored, and i never go to the recipe site as i cant cook but lots go there ,very active place , i spend alot of hours not 10 but maybe 5 or 6 , i do it in spurts some morning some afternoon some evening, i find that i only enter the ones i really want now, sometimes i win a secondary prize which i wasnt really after but they are all fun , amd you are way ahead of me it took me a year to get them all organized i didnt even know how to bookmark things or make folders till about 6 months ago LOL , you are doing nothing wrong , you get faster as you go ,i have upc numbers in my head dont even have to look up alot anymore ,i have recipe cards beside the computer with answers or upcs as well so i dont have to search, and the wins come in spurts some months are very frustrating , well i wrote an even bigger book LOL good luck

[wishfulthinking]

What I always find amazing is how many contests have problems with them - links that don't work, entry forms that won't submit, telling you that you entered in that day when you did not. Luckily they sort themselves in a day or two but it can be a bit frustrating.

I look like an idiot instore sometimes - recording down UPCs, scoping out new contests. My husband is pretty happy that I won the trip to the Niagara area for our wedding anniversary but my kids are still pretty unimpressed since I have not won anything significant which they would like. A trip for 4 to someplace cool would impress them but I never seem to get those. lol

[roswell]

MAKE sure you enter the kids sites like ytv and teletoon etc my best wins for the kids have come from there , i have won a nintendo ds and an ipod from kids sites and the laptop from dell they loved all those my daughter loves when i win jewellry etc jand they all love the free food coupons or gcs for restaurants etc just keep trying

[wishfulthinking]

yes I enter ytv and teletoon all the time. I did win from YTV once but it was a secondary prize that was not interesting to them. I keep trying - star wars contest for my one son,dart tag on YTV so maybe something will happen. They would be thrilled if it was a trip for 4 to some place they would enjoy.

[wishfulthinking]

I have a question for all those experienced contest people. Sometimes the prize is one which I would like but I do not have enough time to enter it daily as there are other things that I would prefer to enter in the time that I have available.

Do you ever enter a daily just once? Have you ever won doing that?

[Lark]

SheKnows contests numbers are fixed and I take back all the negative energy I was sending their way

Peace, and understanding...OHM....

[wishfulthinking]

When it hits the end of June, I will have been very actively entering contests for 1 year. As I am approaching the 1 year I am realizing that the amount of time that I have put into it is a lot yet the wins are very few.

Don't get me wrong. I am thrilled to win what I have won but I am thinking that depending upon what happens by the beginning of July, perhaps I will scale back. I am thinking that I will enter any once only contests that interest me and only enter a daily or weekly if the prize is just so great that I can't resist. I probably can make better use of my time then entering so many contests a day. I know my house would be a lot cleaner if I did!

My family has been pretty patient with me and my hobby of entering contests but given that few have panned out, it seems reasonable to cut back significantly.

[roswell]

Originally Posted by lark

sheknows contests numbers are fixed and i take back all the negative energy i was sending their way :d

peace, And understanding...ohm....

no they are all screwed up again so you have no bad karma coming lol

[roswell]

Originally Posted by wishfulthinking

I have a question for all those experienced contest people. Sometimes the prize is one which I would like but I do not have enough time to enter it daily as there are other things that I would prefer to enter in the time that I have available.

Do you ever enter a daily just once? Have you ever won doing that?

I FIGURE WHEN IT IS YOUR TURN IT IS YOUR TURN i won the LAPTOP from the dell whats your flic contest i played about 6 times , last i looked about a month into the contest i was ranked 11,000 i am sure by the time it ended i was way past 20,000 in rank, so was just fluke , one entry is better than none and you ahve to enter the ones you really want first then if you have time do the rest , your turn WILL come

[roswell]

Originally Posted by wishfulthinking

When it hits the end of June, I will have been very actively entering contests for 1 year. As I am approaching the 1 year I am realizing that the amount of time that I have put into it is a lot yet the wins are very few.

Don't get me wrong. I am thrilled to win what I have won but I am thinking that depending upon what happens by the beginning of July, perhaps I will scale back. I am thinking that I will enter any once only contests that interest me and only enter a daily or weekly if the prize is just so great that I can't resist. I probably can make better use of my time then entering so many contests a day. I know my house would be a lot cleaner if I did!

My family has been pretty patient with me and my hobby of entering contests but given that few have panned out, it seems reasonable to cut back significantly.

if you have such limited time, stick to instant wins , once only and kids sites are good too, you will still get some wins

[crackercrumb]

Here is how my sweeping goes:

I enter instants daily (unless they aren't daily). Always.

I enter local radio & TV code words daily. Always.

I enter all locals. Always.

I enter one time entries usually once or twice a week. Never miss one.

I enter weeklies usually on Monday nights.

As for dailies, I have won on a few. I have to admit, it's not worth entering them everyday, unless I really want the prize. I have known quite a few people who have won from sheknows contests with only one entry. There was once a contest giving away 3 prizes & I knew of 2 people who won & both had only one entry each. Luck of the draw. Hearing this made me realize it's not necessary to enter them constantly & I have not been so anal about entering dailies (used to do about 200 a day religiously).

[wishfulthinking]

thanks for the advice crackercrumb and roswell. I think that I am going to scale back what I am doing especially on the dailies. Maybe I will enter most of the dailies once a week except the ones I really want. That would cut down my time and still give me a fair number of entries compared to most people.