Wherever people are in competition with each other, somebody will inevitably cheat in order to gain advantage over the rest of the field. In business, in politics, in sport and, of course, in competitions. It's happening all the time, and anyone running a competition should be aware of it and try to make sure cheats don't win. Vote rigging, multiple and fake identities, hacking games for high scores - it's happening all the time. I'm not going to go into details of all the ways people cheat here, or the rights (if there are any) and wrongs of it, just let off steam about somebody who tried to cheat in the furniture voucher competition that I ran recently.
The competition was run using a Rafflecopter widget. That means that, as with any Rafflecopter competition, I was able to download a spreadsheet of all the entries to check that they were valid before making the draw. With the spreadsheet, the person running the competition can see at a glance whether entrants really HAVE liked, shared, tweeted, commented or whatever else was asked of them, and delete invalid entries prior to making the draw.
THEY CAN ALSO SEE WHAT IP ADDRESS ENTRIES CAME FROM. Now many people enter on behalf of their family, we all know that, and in some happy households there are actually two or more compers. so it isn't unusual to find several entries from one IP address. But 39? THIRTY NINE????? Not unless it's one blooming enormous family!
Yes, I had 39 entries from one IP address. There were three tasks, so that meant I had entries from 13 "different" people, all of whom claimed to have entered the competition all three ways. Rather oddly, for "different" people living in the same house, none of them had a surname. And their first names were a mixture of male and female, Western and Asian.
And yet they all had THE SAME TWITTER ID. The "follow me on Twitter" and "tweet the competition" boxes had been filled with the same information for each. So the cheat was trying to get round the "one entry per person" rule by using 13 email addresses, yet claiming 13 entries for following me ONCE and 13 entries for tweeting ONCE.
What happened to those entries? Before I made the draw all 39 entries were deleted. So if the cheat is reading this, you wasted over a quarter of an hour of your time (Rafflecopter shows the time of your entry too) because you weren't in the draw at all. You probably spend a lot of time comping and wonder why you never win anything, because you don't understand just how much information is sent every time you hit that "submit" button.
It's ages since I've joined in, but this week I'm linking up to Ranty Friday on Mummy Barrow. If you have something to get off your chest, why don't you join in too?
I stopped running competitions on my blog for a number of reasons - the main reason being the bitchiness in the comping community. I had people emailing me with their sob stories telling me how they were being bullied by others and to ask my advice - really? Whether this is true and there really is bullying happening, or the comper was claiming bullying so I'd feel sorry for them, I don't know. What I do know is that I no longer want to be involved with a load of competitive people who are willing to push the boundaries and cross the line in order to win - or are so stupid they can't read the entry requirements and leave themselves with no chance at all. It's such a shame for those of us in the blogging community who do run competitions, may I add mainly for free and goodwill.
ReplyDeleteI would have deleted the entries too. Good for you. Great ranty Friday!
That's a great point, that the cheats and whingers are putting people off from running competitions. I know that 99% of compers are lovely people, but that 1% can spoil everything. I'll remind compers of that in a future post!
DeleteIt sounds like the same person who tried to cheat on my last Blog giveaway, they used variables of Asian names all from the same IP address. I feel really disheartened this week with the world of comping, I have always been a sharer and have never worried about putting myself 'out there' so to speak, but I have had to take a long hard look at the way I comp and run giveaways, it's just sad.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you can weed the cheaters out!
ReplyDeleteGood on you deleting them x
But not everyone who runs a rafflecopter comp weeds them out - or they wouldn't enter.
ReplyDeleteWell, as I said, I was writing about my own personal experience, and I certainly DID weed them out. And I know a lot of bloggers who run comps read my blog, so maybe from now on more of them WILL weed them out. There is nothing to tell people they haven't gone into the draw, so the cheat could well be getting removed from all the comps they enter, and simply not be winning, but press on in the naive hope that one day they will. And the more bloggers hear about what is happening, the more likely that is to happen!
DeleteI'm so glad your post will highlight the problem with other bloggers. And thanks for being so scrupulous! :)
Deletethanks so much for highlighting that - I naively had no idea that anyone would even try to cheat on rafflecopter so will make sure we double check those spreadsheets on the ones we host in future! xxx
ReplyDeleteglad there is only one of me! if there were any more they would not be comping but running mum's taxi service, mum's form filling service, mum's pr service, laundry, tailoring, waitressing... blah blah blah...
ReplyDeleteThis morning started with a 4:30am drop off after a 2:30 am pick up... I could be insufferable by ... now?
I always thought that Rafflecopter selected the winner not the person running it. So that means there's always the chance that the more unscrupulous of comp organisers could be picking friends or those they feel contribute the most to their blog rather than a random pick.
ReplyDeleteThat's probably why I never win, too many blogs and not enough time!
Yes, Rafflecopter DOES pick the winner, but the person running the competition moderates it. The Rafflecopter randomiser does its thing, but the blogger can remove invalid or fraudulent entries first, just as in any other way of running a competition, those not entitled to be in the draw are removed before the draw is done.
DeleteOh that's good to hear, thanks for clarifying Jane :)
DeleteHow ridiculous, 39 entries, either they wanted the prize badly or they are just plain greedy. Whilst I don't enter as many competitions as I once did, I would never think to make up another name and enter via that one... so silly
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the reasons I hate doing giveaways on my blog. TOo many cheats and people trying to play the game. It just isnt fair.
ReplyDeleteOh my god, what are people like? That is ridiculous. Even my Mum goes "Oh go on, enter that one for me" and I tell her "listen, i'll email you the links and teach you how to use rafflecopter!" hehe and funnily enough I win a fair bit of rafflecopter comps! It's re-assuring for us genuine compers to know that rafflecopter is monitored :) twitter will probably bounce them off too, twitter hate it when I tweet about rafflecopter giveaways! x
ReplyDelete