My Christmas treat for you!

Tomorrow is the start of December. And for compers, that means the start of the frenzy of Advent Competitions.

I'm not going to give you advice on coping with them - everybody has their own way of dealing with it and besides, I've done that in  previous  years.

I'm not going to put together a list of Advent competitions for you - I'll be too busy entering them myself. And so many websites and forums compile excellent ones that my contribution would be unnecessary.

So what AM I going to treat you to? Well, everything, even comping, is easier when you are relaxed, and listening to music is a great way to feel relaxed. So I've chosen a different piece of music for you to listen to every day from December 1st until Christmas Day itself. Music to put you in the Christmas spirit. Music to sing while you comp.

I'll be tweeting out a link to the tune for the day between 08.45 and 09.00 every morning (thanks to a bit of confusion with the scheduling, a couple of days have TWO tunes) so keep your eye on my Twitter page  or look out for the hashtag #singwhileyoucomp

And if you get a chance to look at the videos in the links, please do - some of the ones I've chosen are ones I've picked because they are unusual, interesting, funny or simply awe inspiring!

Good luck everybody!

Friday rant - promoters who don't make the instructions clear

Last week my Friday rant was aimed at compers who don't follow the instructions - but what about those times when the instructions are so vague that they are actually misleading? You may actually believe you are entering a competition and not entering at all!

The place this seems to happen most is Twitter. It's very hard to explain a competition lucidly in 140 characters, and often the phrasing of a tweet can make it look like a simple "Retweet to enter" competition when it isn't.

Have a look at these tweets:

#Win an adorable fine china #Santa #teapot and some darjeeling loose tea. RT, follow & enter at bit.ly/Q7V1f7
— Whittard of Chelsea(@whittarduk) November 21, 2012

Win a case of Champagne! RT, follow and enter at bit.ly/WF6kx6Ts&Cs apply. 18+ only. Ends midnight 4/12 #comp
— CooperativePhmy (@CooperativePhmy) November 23, 2012

#Competition: Follow @heatholdersocks and RT for a chance to #win winter hamper! Including Heat Holder socks. Enter now bit.ly/TimEig
— Heat Holders (@HeatHolderSocks) November 26, 2012

Love @little_mistress as much as we do? RT& Enter for your chance to #WIN a £1000#LittleMistress Shopping Spree bit.ly/WSgWsA x
— Very.co.uk (@verynetwork) November 26, 2012

RT @tefaluk RT & enter our #competition to #win some Jamie Oliver by Tefal cookware & bakeware from @penguinukbooks! bit.ly/OOn56t
— TefalUK (@TefalUK) November 26, 2012
 

Every one of them looks at first glance like a simple retweet competition doesn't it? And yet actually for each one of them, you need to follow the link in the tweet and enter on a website, sometimes giving an answer too. Just retweeting the competition doesn't get you into the draw, in fact despite the implication in the tweet, it isn't even a condition of entry! They just want those retweets  to get the word out about the competition.  But lots of compers are retweeting the messages over and over again and may never even have visited the site to make that single entry which is the only one that will count. Even some of the new sites that list retweet competitions have been caught out by some of these.

HOWEVER OFTEN YOU TWEET, YOU WON'T BE IN THE DRAW IF YOU DON'T ENTER ON THE WEBSITE!

There's no way we can tell whether individual promoters are being deliberately misleading in order to get extra exposure or simply hampered by the shortage of characters, but it's always worth checking out a link in a competition tweet, just in case that is the REAL way to enter, especially if the phrase "RT & enter" is used.

I'm submitting this to Ranty Friday over at Mummy Barrow.

Lots of ways to win Zulily vouchers

If you have children or grandchildren, you are probably already familiar with Zulily, who have such a fantastic range of children's clothes, and now there are lots of ways you can win £25 to spend with them. All of these blogs have competitions at the moment:

EvinOK closing December 5th
Diary of a First Child closing December 3rd
My Mummy's Pennies closing December 4th
Chelsea Mamma closing December 8th
Baby Budgeting closing December 5th
Tired Mummy of Two closing December 2nd

What's more, Zulily's latest Instagram competition - a  Christmas one of course - will be starting next week. I'll bring you news about that one nearer the time

A Delight-ful new competition

There is a lovely new competition over at Kitchen Delight  - you can win  a host of beautiful gold-themed dining table accessories to decorate your table with, along with a package of luxury Italian deli items and a tub of Bertolli Gold to enjoy. The prize package value is over £350. Just think what your Christmas dinner table could look like!

 

To enter, visit the competition page  and follow the steps in the Rafflecopter widget. Note that sometimes Rafflecopter doesn't work very well in Internet Explorer - this is an issue they are trying to resolve, but for the time being if you get any problems such as the widget not loading, try using a different browser such as Chrome.

The competition closes on December 13th (as usual, at some strange hour of the day thanks to Rafflecopter!)

'Tis the season..... to be scammed!

As Christmas approaches, the scammers redouble their efforts to line their pockets. After all, they want loads of extra money to have themselves a very merry little Christmas, don't they?

Some scammers don't even want to make money out of you, like the traditional "good old fashioned" virus writers, they just want you to waste your precious time. And at this time of year, when everyone is busier than ever, it gives them some kind of perverse kick to think of all those complete strangers whose time they are wasting.

We  compers are particularly vulnerable to scams. After all, there are thousands of perfectly fair and legitimate competitions out there, so it can be very easy to go ahead and enter a fraudulent one by mistake. 

Fake comps are popping up more and more as Christmas approaches, especially on Facebook and Twitter, so here are some of the things to look out for:

• no profile. The "about" section either hasn't been filled in or has some very sketchy info, with no website, no contact details and no signs of it being an active, legitimate business.
• nothing but competitions. Nothing else in the timeline - no chat, no adverts for products and services, and often no chat with friends and followers
• no external links, or only links to very similar pages. No sign that they are doing any kind of business with anyone else
• prizes that are too good to be true. Often highly desirable things like computers, TVs and phones, and yet there is no obvious sign of how they are going to pay for the prize as there are none of the above signs of them being a business
• no closing date. Often a sign that the competition is simply never going to close - that way nobody can accuse them of not having played fairly!
• no terms and conditions. Again, you can't accuse them of not having stuck to the rules if there aren't any! 
• a general bad "feel" about it. This is something you can only pick up  from experience - there are businesses who are new to social media, and new to running competitions, who might tick all the above boxes, simply because they ARE new to it all, but somehow their page will have a more genuine feel to it..... you'll feel comfortable that there is a real human being trying their best to get noticed by potential customers.

One way to check whether a competition is a scam is to send a message, either by tweeting or writing on the wall, because if it's  just been set up by a scammer and left to run automatically there won't be anyone around to read and respond to you.

So why do these scam competitions matter? You may be thinking, "I enter loads of competitions that I don't win - what harm could a scam one do to me? It will just be one more that I don't win, so why waste time checking that it is real?"

Well, except in the case of those produced simply as a time waster, the scammers DO want something from you, and if you enter their competition they will get it.

• They may want your data. Once you have liked, followed, shared and so on, they know your account is active, and they cans ell lists of active accounts to other scammers and spammers. If you have used an app that gives them access to your email address or other personal info, they will be even happier as they and their customers have multiple ways of spamming you and your friends or followers. For instance, one recent one on Facebook resulted in entrants getting spam advertising dating sites.
• They may want to get you involved in what is known as a "survey scam" where you are sent short, often single question surveys with promises of prizes. Not only do the prizes never arrive, they will at some stage ask for your mobile number and then you could start to receive unwanted texts  that can cost you several pounds each.
• They may want access to your profile. If you authorise an app that allows them to post on your profile, as  we do with so many competitions on Facebook and Twitter, they may not draw the line at just "Jane Willis has entered this competition - why don't you?". You could log in one day to find that you appear to have spent the last few hours trying to sell your friends diet pills, unique business opportunities or photos of Britney f***ing! Each message, of course, will contain a link to their website.
• They may even be trying to get hold of enough information from you for identity theft or to hack into your account and take it over completely.

So, exercise a little caution and avoid any competitions that give you an uncomfortable feeling. And remember to change your Facebook and Twitter passwords regularly, make sure the two are not the same, and review all the apps you have authorised from time to time, revoking access to any that you don't recognise or no longer use.

Win an iPad Mini with My Social Radio

My Social Radio's  latest competition is a text entry one with a lovely prize of an iPad mini on offer. There can't be very many Christmas wish lists that don't include one of those!

You can read full details, including the terms and conditions, here but this is what you need to do:

For a chance to win… first you need to correctly answer this question:

Steve Jobs was the CEO of which world-famous technology giant?

A. Apple
B. Blackberry
C. Nokia

 

Grab your mobile and text the word MYSOCIALRADIO followed by a space and YOUR CHOICE of A, B or C.

Send that to 60 999.
Texts cost £1 + your standard network rate. One entry per household. Open to UK and Ireland.
Lines will stay open until midday (GMT) on December 14th 2012

Play the game to win Skype credit!

If you are reading this post live on the blog, have a look over there on the right >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> and you will see a game from Skype. Click on the tiles to remove them and if you are a lucky winner you will get a pop up message to say you have won Skype credit to the value of £2, £20 or even £50 which can be used for things like calls to phones, international SMS messages  and access to WiFi hotspots worldwide. If you can only see an ad for Skype prepaid cards, it means there are no prizes left for the current time slot, so come back later when the prizes have been topped up again.

The game goes live with a new prize pot three times a day, at 10am, 2pm and 8pm, so if you don't win this time, come back again later and try again. It will run until December 7th

There are a total of 8.840 prizes to be won, so lets see how many of them can be bagged by readers of this blog!

If you are reading this by email, Google Reader or an RSS feed you will need to actually visit the blog to play  - but it's well worth it. I heard of two winners just while I was writing this post. Do comment here or tweet me if you win - and very good luck to all of you.