SA Invalidated as Winner in a Competition - Legal?

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tuckercarlson

Member
10 April 2018
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0
1
Hi all,

Not sure this is the correct forum but I have a query about when a company has broken the laws around running a competition.

I recently was emailed and called to tell me that I won a major prize in a competition. I was the preliminary winner. Once I had emailed in my product receipt and ID and it was verified then I would be confirmed the major prize winner.

2 hours after submitting my documents, I was called and verbally confirmed the major prize winner, all my details were taken and I was told to wait for phone calls from the travel agent and promoter.

5 hours after this on the same day the promoter rings to tell me there might be an issue of where my receipt came from, a bricks and mortar store vs a petrol station. They then ring back in 20 minutes later invalidating me and informing me I am no longer the winner.

2 days later, they post my name publicly on their website as the major prize winner and it is still up there for close to 36 hours now.

I have emailed them and told them how terrible I felt at being misled. I have had to embarrassingly tell a lot of people I hadn't won, I have been very upset as it was a dream trip for me and I also have a very upset wife. I emailed them to tell them that due to their failures of verification, none of this would have happened as they had confirmed me as the major prize winner with my details. I then saw my name on their website and emailed asking them to remove it.

They ignored all correspondence until my wife rang them and demanded they apologise to me. They still haven't removed it and then they didn't apologise but basically blamed me again in an email, to which I informed them the entire schmozzle is because they confirmed me as the winner.

I'm not sure but surely it can't be fair to be put through this by a company running a competition. It's caused me great stress and anxiety and my name is still publicly there as the winner. I'm pretty outraged at the treatment because it doesn't seem right, you can just do that to people - promise them the trip of a lifetime and then rescind it 5 hours later after, when you shouldn't have confirmed it in the first place, and then name them publicly, knowing more than 48 hours before they are not the winner? Am I missing something?