Many of you know me not only as a blogger, but a lover of entering giveaways. I like to call it one of my favorite obsessions. If you have been entering giveaways for a long time, you know the problems and issues that can sometimes arise. I thought I would open the topic up a bit, not only because it’s an issue I struggle with, but also because I know so many “horror” giveaway stories.
I honestly spend a couple hours at LEAST each night (or morning) entering giveaways. I find it fun, entertaining and an easy way to accrue free things, especially things I need that I sometimes can’t afford. I’ve been doing this for a couple years now, and for the most part I’ve had no trouble. Recently I’ve came across a couple issues that I thought I would address, especially with a couple fellow bloggers and “Twitter peeps”. I’ve been wanting to blog about the problems, but didn’t really want to air too much dirty laundry. Well here goes nothing…
I have a question for all my readers, “Is it wrong to copy someone else’s tweets?” A former friend that I met in the online world accused me of stealing her tweets, and by this I mean “retweeting” or taking her quotes and mixing up the words a bit to enter a giveaway. So my question is simply, “Is it wrong to retweet or take someone else’s words and jumble them around to enter a Twitter giveaway?” I personally don’t think so. I told the person this, and they told me, “I spend many hours looking for giveaways just to have someone scroll down my timeline and steal them” Well isn’t that what Twitter is for? I know many people that “Scroll” down MY timeline to find good giveaways, is it a crime? I think not.
Another fellow Twitter peep who enters giveaways, (and will remain nameless) enters some pretty good giveaways. I’ve found these good giveaways of course on her Twitter page. Once I started WINNING a few, she blocked me in hopes that I wouldn’t enter the same giveaways SHE is entering. Little does she know, you can still see someone’s Twitter page, you just can’t message them if they have blocked you. I like to call this in a “flaw” in the Twitter system, and I really think if you plan on blocking someone, they should not be allowed to see your tweets, but nonetheless, this person enters MY giveaways on my blog in hopes of winning, and in fairness I allow them to, but I was personally a little upset they would block me simply because I won a giveaway that they were trying to win.
And another issue, prizes. I know several bloggers that “rig” giveaways, and allow their friends to win, something I do not, and have never done. I did win a giveaway a couple months ago, that the blogger could not get me, but instead of letting me know in email, they decided to ignore all my messages. Not cool.
I also won a giveaway a couple months back where I contacted the company directly because the blogger was obviously not helping, and the PR person in charge of all giveaways told me this person was never authorized to run a giveaway, but in turn they sent me my prize anyways. Awesome company.
However in the last 2 months or so, I’ve probably won about 6 things, and have only received one of them. This is a bit of discouragement when it comes to entering giveaways. Yes, I know sometimes companies can be a bit flaky, (uh HM wild west wear..) but I really feel it is the blogger’s personal duty to help ensure that the winner gets their prize the best they can. Most of these bloggers have chosen to ignore me instead of help me redeem my prize, and while a couple are smaller then others, there is one huge prize I won that I’m pretty bummed I didn’t receive, especially considering all the work I put into winning.
I know this is a sensitive subject among many bloggers and other people that enter contests and giveaways. So I just wanted to put this out there, Are giveaways really worth the time and effort? I will say yes for now, but I will keep you all updated, in hopes that bloggers, PR reps, companies and people in GENERAL will be better honest human beings.
On a brighter note, Mila is now 6 months old. Can’t believe my baby is half a year old. Oh how time flies…
Thanks for sharing your experience it’s been really interesting to read as someone who’s just getting into entering giveaways via blogs and the like. Mostly my experiences have been good (touch wood) although I’m starting to see that you should only get excited about winning giveaways when the actual good turn up on your doorstep! I’ve had so many just not turn up – particularity from bloggers who claim their contests are international and sometimes I think once they find out I’m not in their country they just don’t bother.
I’[m starting to make note of the competitions I win and then marking them off for when they arrive just to see!
i totally agree. and yes international giveaways are the worst! I hope things get better for you, as for me, i’ll probably still keep entering. I’m hopelessly addicted!