Facebook Account Disabled - a warning!

I returned home from a lovely afternoon stroll with Ryland to find my Mac asking me to log in to Facebook. Funny I thought, as I never usually log out... I tried to log in only to be greeted by 'Account Disabled'. 

I clicked through to see why:

Fake accounts are a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. All accounts must abide by the following policies: 

• You must provide your real first name and last name. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited. 

• You are not allowed to create multiple accounts that exist solely for the usage of Facebook Platform applications. 

• It is a violation of Facebook policy to maintain more than one account on the site. 

• Profiles (timelines) created to represent celebrities, pets, ideas, or inanimate objects are strictly prohibited. 

• Profiles (timelines) created for the purpose of spamming or harassing others are strictly prohibited. 

People on Facebook want to interact with their real friends and the people they know in the real world. Since fake accounts can damage the integrity of this environment, they are not allowed to remain on the site.

It seems that finally Facebook are actially starting to enforce their policy about multiple accounts and fake profile names. The problem is - my name Di Coke is real, and I only have one Facebook account! And it's not the abbreviation that's the issue, as their policy states: Nicknames can be used as a first or middle name if they're a variation of your real first or last name (like Bob instead of Robert) 

So what happened? Well, I think it's one of two things - either someone has reported my account as being fake, or Facebook are having a clampdown on the use of brand names. Either way, I deserved a warning first, before they disabled my account and took down my SuperLucky fan page. In addition to that, I can't access the four pages I'm an Administrator on - and nobody is able to contact me via Facebook. As a Blogger and Social Media Manager, this is a major blow. It's been three hours since they disabled my account and I hope this is sorted ASAP. Until then, if you need to, you can contact me via Twitter or email.

And to those of you reading this who have two Facebook accounts or use comping nicknames - take this as a warning! If your account gets disabled you'll need to upload ID showing your real name to reactivate it, and I don't think many of you have passports with the name 'Lucky MSE Turnips' on do you?!

Guest post for JoJoEbi's New Skills Festival!

Today I'm delighted to point you in the direction of the wonderful A Bit of This and a Bit of That to read my guest post on how to run a giveaway on your blog as part of JoJoEbi's New Skills Festival. There's a guest post every day featuring loads of brilliant crafty things for you to check out too... enjoy!

JoJoEbi and I met at University many moons ago, while we both studied Electronic Imaging and Media Communications at Bradford. I couldn't ask for a finer best friend, although rather inconsiderately she lives in Japan - hence my constant attempts to win holidays there!

Whilst the other alumni have progressed onto amazing things like Forensic Science and working as cameramen in Alaska, Jo and I have randomly ended up as Mum Bloggers on opposite sides of the world! I like to think that my recent success in video competitions is down to our late nights in the editing suite putting the finishing touches to masterpieces like 'George Bear's Birthday Party' . And of course there was the infamous time we had to work in teams to film a sporting event - notoriously lazy, Jo and I opted to film a chess match... 

If you write a blog then competitions are a great way to recruit new followers and create a buzz - I hope my guest post at Jo's blog will give you some good tips. Next on the agenda is a video tutorial on how to enter blog comps so stay tuned!

Say NO to Automated Competition Entry Services!

I'm currently working together with Accolade (publishers of Compers News magazine) and Loquax to educate compers and promoters about why Automated Competition Entry Services are a bad thing. We want websites and promoters to BAN these entries from their competitions, by including a short line in their terms and conditions: “automated/bulk entries and entries from third parties are not permitted”. 

Loquax have several interesting blog posts about Automated Entry Services, and Compers News featured an 'Ask the Experts' article in May about why compers shouldn't go near them. If you're not aware of these services, please read on to find out why they're spoiling our hobby...

What are Automated Entry Services? 

• Subscribers pay a fee to be entered automatically in hundreds of competitions each month 
• Examples are www.win24.co.uk, www.prizewise.co.uk, www.prizedrawcentre.co.uk and www.wewin4u.co.uk 

As an example, check out the list of current competitions that Prize Draw Centre will enter you in at http://www.prizedrawcentre.co.uk/competitions-to-win-prizes.php 

Your opinion may well be: 'Ah well, I won't enter any of those competitions because with thousands of automated entries I won't have a chance of winning!'. But with such great prizes on offer, why should we let these companies get away with spoiling our hobby? 

Along with Loquax and Accolade, we're making a point of telling promoters why they shouldn't be allowing these automated entries - and I hope you'll support us! 

Why compers shouldn't pay to use Automated Entry Services: 

• You can't choose the prizes you are entered for. 
• You're paying to be entered into some prize draws where the promoter actually specifies in the Terms and Conditions that automated entries will be disqualified
• You have no proof that you’re actually being entered for any competitions at all
• You may find yourself entered for competitions on dodgy websites that you normally wouldn’t touch with a bargepole - leading to spam and junk mail
• You won't have any of the excitement that comes with finding and entering comps!
• You could disqualify yourself by submitting your own entry to a draw that you've already been automatically entered in 

How do Automated Entry Services affect compers?

• As a comper, if you enter a prize draw that's on the hitlist of any of these automated entry services, that competition will get thousands of extra entries meaning the chance of you winning will be minimal. 

How do Automated Entry Services affect promoters?

• As a promoter, your competition entrants aren't visiting or interacting with your website
• Your prizes are going to people who probably won't appreciate them - surely you should be awarding your prizes to people who actually visit your site? 

How promoters can stop this happening:

• Include “automated/bulk entries and entries from third parties are not permitted” in the terms and conditions 
• Consider using a Facebook App to host competitions - Automated Entry Services can't access Facebook accounts, so this would be a deterrent
• Ask entrants to complete a tiebreaker or upload a photo/video - these types of competition will also forge a better relationship with your real fans

How compers can make a difference

• If you enter an online prize draw, read the rules. If you don't see anything mentioning automated entries, email the promoter and ask them to include this text in their terms and conditions: “automated/bulk entries and entries from third parties are not permitted” 

Here is an email template you can use (based on Loquax's original) - or you could edit it yourself so it's more relevant to a particular promoter.

Dear (promoter/website) 

I entered a competition on your website today, but noticed in the terms and conditions that you don't mention entries from third parties, bulk entries or automated entry services.

Automated entry services allow thousands of paid subscribers to enter competitions without visiting the websites at all - often they don't know what competitions they are entered in, and will have no use for the prize. There's an example list of websites that are targeted at http://www.prizedrawcentre.co.uk/competitions-to-win-prizes.php 

This is a real shame for the people who do visit your website and would genuinely love to win a prize! Many websites are now adding “automated/bulk entries and entries from third parties are not permitted” to their rules and I wonder if you might consider doing the same?

Kind regards
(name)

Just as promoters will insist on running voting competitions, I doubt that we will ever see the end of Automated Entry Services. But just as many of us have done with constant blogging, Facebook posts and advice to promoters on voting, we do have the power to make websites aware of the existence of these services - and can advise them on changing the rules to disqualify them!

Comping should be a fun hobby and we need to keep it that way - please Share this post to spread the word!

What's your memorable mobile moment?

TalkMobile have just launched a great competition called 'Mobile Moments' - now I don't usually devote a blog post to a solitary competition but the Flash website is clever and cute, with bouncing balls that change size depending on the popularity of your story, so from a designer's point of view I think it deserves your attention! And of course there are fab prizes to be won, and you need to make an effort to enter so it ticks all the right boxes for me.


To enter, visit www.mobilemoments.co.uk and upload a story (text or video) of a memorable mobile phone call, text or voicemail. 

• 10 randomly selected entries will win a year of Spotify premium 
• The judges will choose ten finalists based on the most apt and original memorable mobile related moment - also taking into account the number of votes 
• The ten finalists will go to the public vote and five winners will receive either a BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900 & BlackBerry® PlayBook™ bundle OR A Samsung Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Tab bundle. 
• Enter before 14 October 2011.

As you know, I'm not a big fan of voting competitions but because this one involves judging, prizes for random winners and there are five prizes for the finalists, I think they've made it reasonably fair. If you want to read my memorable moment, you can do so here. Good luck, and post your entries as a comment here if you like!

Bag a bargain subscription to Compers News!

In a world of Facebook, Twitter and blogs, isn't it charming that people still get excited about a magazine dropping through the letterbox onto their doormat? I know I do!

This week Compers News have launched a special subscription offer for a £9.99 three month trial or a £17.50 six month trial - to order, just CLICK HERE! Now, of course I'm biased. After ten years of subscribing, I recently joined Compers News as the designer, and I also write a monthly column on the joys of online comping - so you can understand my enthusiasm for this splendid magazine!

Here's a few reasons you should give it a go:

• Compers News has a private online forum, but access is restricted to paying subscribers - meaning there are fewer of us than on free comping forums, and we can share a lot more information about elusive low-entry competitions. Steve the editor has a knack of finding on-pack SMS and instant win competitions and giving us the tip off so we can win those early prizes. Recently 100 washing machines were offered in a Sainsbury's text competition - a Chatterbox member posted up the details at the very start of the promotion, and forum members literally cleaned up by winning the majority of the prizes.
• the listings are extensive, accurate and include loads of comps you won't find elsewhere - this is because Steve is the hardest working man in comping. Seriously, I don't think he sleeps. In the morning I have an email from him at 4am just before he goes to bed, and another at 7am when he gets up!
• there are loads of subscriber-only prizes, ranging from puzzle and slogan comps to cash and vouchers for your comping letters and photos. 
• if your story is chosen for the monthly Star Comper page, you will win £100 - and I know that loads of my blog readers have got fabulous comping tales to tell (yes, I've seen the Facebook photos!) 
• it's researched, written and designed entirely by compers, with excellent advice from successful winners like Jane Willis (@janesgrapevine) and Pam Crampton. So you know it's good! 

OK, so there you have it. Spend £9.99, get three issues, write a letter, email a photo, enter a few comps, and you've won your subscription money back - and if you haven't, then maybe you should try a new hobby!

Subscribe to Compers News here, find out more at www.compersnews.com or Like the Compers News Facebook Page for the latest news!

Creative comp round up: Sept 2011

There are so many inspiring, fun and downright daft competitions about at the moment I thought I should do you a round up of them all. If you enter any of these, feel free to post a link to your entry here or over at the SuperLucky Facebook page! Don't forget if these are the type of comps you enjoy, you'll find links to all of them (and more!) by scrolling down through the Facebook page, and you can also search www.theprizefinder.com for recipe, photo or video competitions.


Photo comps
Argos are giving away a £50 voucher every day until 20 September 2011 to their favourite creative photo of an Argos Catalogue - you'll need to upload your photo using their 'Show us your Catalogue' Facebook App to enter. One of the 14 daily winners will also receive an iPad.

Win a 2 night break in a log cabin with Tyrrells Crisps - upload a photo of a bag of Tyrrells to their Facebook App by 20 September 2011. The 20 most popular photos will be judged on creativity, originality, technical quality, composition and brand relevance - there are only 13 entries so far so I don't think you'll need to worry too much about the voting element!


It's National Wear a Tea Cosy on your Head Day on 22 September, and White Stuff are giving away £200 vouchers to their favourite photo. Enter by emailing a photo of you to teacosy@whitestuff.com before 25 September 2011 - read more here.

Westfield Stratford City is opening this week and to celebrate they're running a 'Create Your Take' competition - upload a photo to their Facebook App in any of their 8 East End themed categories by 22 September 2011 and you can either go for the voting prize to win up to £10,000 cash (depending on the number of Facebook fans that Like the page), or aim for the spot prizes in each category which will be chosen by bloggers. The categories and spot prizes are unusual and I think this is a really inspired competition - to redeem most of the prizes you will need to live in the area though, so do read the rules and terms carefully. I decided to enter the Hoxton Fin category so if you like my take, please vote for me!

Hotels4U want you to take Harry on holiday with you and upload a photo to their Facebook App to win a £30 Snapfish gift certificate - print off Harry at the Facebook page! Closes 26 September 2011.


The Memorial Awareness Board have extended the deadline (no pun intended!) of their photography competition to 30 September 2011. To enter, submit photos of 'Then' and 'Now' stone memorials - the winner will get £1000. Read more here.

Win gold iPads, iPod, handbags and mugs in the Douwe Egberts Embarrassing Mugs competition on Facebook. The main prizes will go to the mugs with the most votes, but every week ten winners will be selected by the judges to receive a gold mug. Enter by uploading your photo to their Facebook App before 7 October 2011. 

Knight Radio are giving away an iPod Touch to their favourite photo featuring the Knight Radio log - download it and read more details here. Enter before 14 December 2011.

Win an iPad2 by uploading a photo of Frumoo drink to their Facebook wall by 31 January 2012. Read more at their website. Thankyou to Facebook friend Amanda Letch for letting me know about this comp!

Video comps
Frank's Red Hot have launched a brilliant competition on YouTube - upload a video of you and your friends adding Frank's Original Red Hot Sauce to any kind of food, saying the tagline, 'I put that splat on everything!'. Entries will be judged on creativity, originality, use of food, technical quality, brand relevance and composition - so make sure you plan your entry carefully so when it comes to filming you can tick all the boxes! There are 5 prizes - a 42 inch Bravia TV, a 22 inch Sharp TV and 3 runners up get a £100 voucher to spend on spicy hot food! Closing date 31 October 2011 - read the detailed terms and conditions here.

ECar want you to upload your video confession at ecartruthordare.co.uk - the five most popular will win an iPad2. Enter before 1 October 2011.

Autoglass need people to star in their next TV ad, and are giving away iPad2s and possibly £3000 to successful auditionees! Upload a video - or a photo - of you with your car to their Faceook App - entries will be judged, and get them in before 2 October 2011.

The Mecca Bingo video competition is a great concept - they want new bingo calls, one for each number from 1-90, so are asking fans to upload their 'Bingo Lingo' videos to their Facebook page. The overall winner is decided on public votes and will win £1000 HIgh Street vouchers, and 2nd and 3rd most popular will win £700 and £300 vouchers. In addition to these prizes, Mecca are choosing their favourite 5 most original videos each week and rewarding them with £100 vouchers - the only downside is that you can only enter one video, so make sure you choose an unusual number so your entry stands out from the crowd. I reckon fancy dress or a silly location might bag you a prize too! Closing date for entries is 25 September 2011.


Recipe comps
Design a sandwich for the Co-operative competition and you could win £1000. Submit your entry online before 20 September 2011 - the Co-op will shortlist between 3-8 entries which will go to a public vote to decide the winner. Only enter this if you're prepared to work very hard at campaigning for votes, as there aren't any runners up prizes!

The Summer Casillero del Diablo Supper Club competition closes on 20 September 2011 - upload your recipe, pair it with one of their wines and you could win an afternoon at Cookery School with a wine tasting. Jane Willis (Comper's Grapevine) and I both won their Winter competition and you can read about what a wonderful time we had here.

Crock Pot want your slow cooker recipes, and are offering an amazing prize of a £2000 cookery course plus £1500 retailer vouchers for the best, with five runners up prizes of £250 Abel and Cole vegetable box deliveries and a new slow cooker. Upload your recipe and photo to their Crocktober Facebook App before 21 October 2011. Sadly, the competition winner and runners up will be the recipes with the most votes, and CrockPot as yet haven't explained why they are allowing plagiarised entries in the competition when the rules specifically state the entries should be your own original work. I've entered this red lentil and yogurt soup and would love to win a prize in this, so if you like my recipe you can vote for me here - thankyou!

Kids comps
Win a year's supply of Feel Good drinks and a Kickers Back to School kit by designing your own shoes - enter online here by 30 September 2011.

Design a Spooky Smoothie and you and your classmates could win a day at Innocent Towers plus £1000 for your school - read all the details at the First News website and enter before 7 October 2011.

Upload a video of your news to win Flip camcorders and other prizes in the British Council competition - enter before 15 October 2011.

Design a Travelbug and win a family holiday in Wiltshire, and your Travelbug made up! Download an entry form at www.traykittravelbug.com/ and enter before 31 October 2011. Thanks to blog reader Liz Denial for telling me about this one!

Design comps
Win 6 pairs of your own Pico shoe design with Route One - email your design for a Lakai Pica shoe to lakaimyway@routeone.co.uk before 30 September 2011 to enter - read more here. 

Blog Comp Linky: October 2011

Welcome to my blog comp linky for competitions that are closing in OCTOBER 2011. If you're hosting a giveaway please add it to the list, including the prize and the closing date - and your blog name if you can fit it in! You can access this post and the NOVEMBER linky via the links on the right hand side bar.

Please note, competitions MUST be hosted on a blog and they should be open to UK entries. For advice on running blog comps and more info about Rafflecopter check out this blog post.
If you want to enter these competitions but aren't sure how, check out my post on How to Enter a Blog Competition for advice!

Don't forget to add your blog giveaway to www.theprizefinder.com too!

Amazon Competition Winner!

Thankyou to everyone who entered my competition on Facebook to win a prize of your choice from Amazon! Of the 421 that entered, I was amazed to see that almost half of the entrants didn't follow the instructions - I wanted an Amazon shortlink to a product costing less than £25, but I got lots of fabulous random answers like 'a babysitter', 'an engagement ring', 'a car' and 'not sure yet'. It might explain why a lot of you haven't been very lucky with your comping yet - it's worth taking a little time to read the rules and the terms and conditions!

This evening I collated all the entries into a spreadsheet and employed random.org to choose a winning number for me. That lucky number was 419, and you can imagine how delighted I was to see the dream prize of that particular entrant.... 

Congratulations Roger Stanley, you have won a Mankini!  I'll contact you very soon for your address details - and I hope you won't get too chilly wearing it now that Winter is on its way...

As Roger's Mankini is on Amazon for the bargain price of £4.19 I will be using the rest of my £25 budget for another competition very soon - so keep an eye on the blog and the Facebook page for news!

Swiss Family: Rob and son!

Back in June Toblerone promoted a great imaginative competiton for Fathers Day, where you had to upload a photo or video showing how your Dad solves problems round the house with a Toblerone bar. This kept Rob, Ryland and I busy for an entire Sunday and we were delighted when Toblerone chose our film 'How Daddy got my triangles back' as the winner of a three night stay in Switzerland. The trip was for two but we were able to pay the extra taxes to take Ryland along; it wouldn't have been the same without him!

We left Birmingham airport early last Wednesday morning. I was dreading the journey with a 20 month old: a 90 minute flight, 10 minute train journey from the airport, another 80 minute train journey and a 40 minute bus ride to Lenzerheide. The Swiss transport system was efficient and comfortable though, some trains even have a family zone for the little ones - and naturally the scenery is incredible!

We stayed at the Hotel Schweizerhof, whose tongue-in-cheek website and photography doesn't really show how fabulous it is. It's gorgeous, cosy, comfortable, modern and beautifully designed. 

Our room was spacious and we were provided with robes and slippers - as was Ryland, who even had his own teddy bear!

That evening we all ate dinner together in the family restaurant, meals were part of the prize but we hadn't realised it would be a six course feast! Understandably Ry became increasingly impatient and we didn't make it past the fourth course. For the next two evenings we brought Ry down for an early tea and then utilised the hotel's free baby listening service when we returned to dine at a more leisurely pace later on! The Children's menu was fab and he was able to go into the kitchen to choose his ice-cream from the freezer. The buffet breakfasts were enormous, featuring plenty of delicious Swiss cheese!

Thursday morning was blighted with heavy rain so we took the opportunity to enjoy the hotel's wellness centre and family pool. It was fabulous, there was even a 'cave' where you could enjoy a tropical rain shower. That afternoon we walked round Lake Heidsee and used our complimentary pass on the Rothorn cable cars, where we were surrounded by clouds so didn't get much of a view, but the tasty Apfelstrudel made up for it!

Our prize voucher included a session in the hotel's amazing Turkish Bath with a Rhassoul mud pack and a 45 minute soap massage, which Rob and I took on alternate evenings. It was heaven!

On Friday the weather was beautiful so with suncream applied, we popped Ry in the rucksack and jumped on the chair lift to the mountaintop. It was a truly incredible view of the Alps in every direction, here are the boys posing with a Toblerone bar...

We spent a couple of hours walking down the mountain, Ry dozed off for part of it but livened up as soon as we stopped off at a restaurant and he spotted the Milka cows.

The hotel had swings, a slide, trampoline and loads of things to keep little ones entertained: they even offered a free kindergarten from 10am-5pm so parents could enjoy the spa; we took advantage of this on our last day before setting off on the long journey home. I'd honestly thought a 'luxury family' holiday was something of a contradiction but the Swiss Tourist board and The Hotel Schweizerhof have proved it can be done. 

Thanks so much to Toblerone, Golin Harris and Christina at Switzerland Tourism for arranging this fabulous trip, we loved it!

If this amazing prize has inspired you to get comping, do check out the current promotion at mytoblerone.co.uk - the most creative Toblerone recipe uploaded will win an overnight stay at the Chocolate Boutique Hotel in Bournemouth pus a chocolate making workshop and £100 travel expenses. Entry closes on 30th September and you can read the terms and conditions here - good luck!

WOW, you messed with the wrong girl.

You might have heard me screeching with delight a couple of weeks ago when WOW Toys announced me as the winner of £1000 in their video competition with a Facebook wall post and a Tweet. I then received this lovely email from their Marketing Executive:

Dear Diana,

WELL DONE!

Thank you for the great video; we all loved it here at the WOW HQ. We had a video judging session with all members of staff from international sales to Design to Marketing and PR and we all voted out of 10 on certain areas. Your video came in with the highest score with 306 points with the runner up having 285! I will contact you again to finalise the procedure of the £1,000 prize, but for now this is just to say congratulations and I hope you spend the money wisely, i.e on lots of WOW Toys ;)

Kind regards, 

Matthew

Marketing Executive

As you can imagine I was enormously excited. If you enjoy my blog you'll know I love creative competitions - photos, recipes, videos, fancy dress and design - and it's such a wonderful feeling to know that as well as entertaining people, all the effort I put in can result in a prize as special as this. I decided the money would go towards a cottage holiday next Spring - and of course plenty more WOW Toys for Ryland!

A week later I received another email from Matthew: 

Dear Diana 

I am afraid I have some bad news. Our Financial Controller has triple checked the voting point scores for the WOW video competition and there has been a mistake in the initial addition of the scores. This has not happened before and I am really sorry to give you this news. It means that you are not the winner of the main prize. One of the other video entries is in fact the winner of the main prize with a higher point score. The competition is audited and we have to follow the strict rules and unfortunately there is nothing I can do about it.

Your video entry has won a runner up prize of £50 worth of WOW Toys. To choose which toys you would like please refer to the amazon.co.uk website and use the full price of each toy to make up a selection of toys up to the value of £50. Please email me your selection. Once again I am really sorry about what has happened but it is better to win something rather than nothing at all. 

Best Regards,

Matthew 

Can you imagine how I felt? Not only was this sent 7 days after I was officially announced as the winner, but it arrived in my inbox just before I went on holiday. Thanks a lot, WOW - great timing. I replied politely to Matthew asking for an explanation of the error, and asking why it took them a week to pick it up. I've worked as an auditor and the job involves a lot of paperwork and careful checking - so surely the scores should have been checked before any announcement was made, rather than a whole week later? Something doesn't seem right to me - call me paranoid but during the 24 hours prior to receiving this email, my blog post about the WOW competition had 10 views, compared to just 1 or 2 a day before that. Did someone tell them I was a 'comper', and perhaps after seeing my blog and competition successes they decided I didn't deserve the prize? I'd like to think that's not the case. Yes, I'm aware that mentioning my wins in public might affect my chances in competitions - but I don't get paid to write this blog, I do it because I love creative competitions and I want to inspire more people to enter them, so that promoters will run more of them!

I returned from holiday on Sunday and had received no reply from Matthew, so this morning I called him. Twice my calls were ignored and not returned, on the third occasion the phone was hung up, and finally Matthew decided to ask someone else to talk to me, who didn't seem to know much about the promotion at all. Indeed, when attempting to explain the error in the judging scores he actually described it to me as 'like a child's mistake' and informed me that nothing could be done.

This situation has arisen several times before on Facebook, where a winner has been announced incorrectly - but every time the promoter has quickly realised their mistake. In the two situations I personally have been involved in, the public votes had been miscounted. The promoters - Sweaty Betty and Wee Ride - doubled the prizes and gave one to their incorrectly announced winner and one to the real winner. They did this within an hour of realising an error had been made. With WOW Toys, I was led to believe I'd won £1000 for a whole week - and they still haven't had the guts to admit their mistake on Facebook and announce the real winner!

Over the last few days WOW have given away almost £400 of toys on their Facebook page, yet they can't acknowledge that they have made a huge mistake and offer me more than the £50 of toys I would have received as a runner up. That's BAD customer service. I spent time promoting this competition and I'm sure WOW wouldn't have had as many entries had I not blogged and tweeted about it, encouraging people to have a go.

One last thing - I'm delighted for the real winner of the £1000, I'm not sure if they've been told yet but I do hope it's one of my friends' excellent entries!

Update - 6th September 4pm
The Marketing Manager of WOW contacted me this afternoon to apologise and explain she had been on holiday and had not been contacted about the situation. She confirmed that my video had indeed scored the most points from the judges to win the competition, and that WOW would be rewarding both myself and the runner-up a £1000 prize - which she has since announced on their Facebook page. It's not a satisfactory explanation of the issues surrounding the scoring mistakes, but it does demonstrate the power of social media when it comes to righting a wrong, and I must thank everyone who took the time to read this post and get involved. Your support means a lot to me and I hope you continue to read my blog and enter the competitions I post. Comping is a fun hobby and I feel sad that recent cheating and voting scandals have spoilt it for those of us that are honest, genuine entrants. Be lucky!