Every now and then we get a lot of visitors to Loquax looking for “The Prize Directory”. Now we’ve used the phrase since we started 18 years ago to describe the page where you can search competitions by prize type… but that doesn’t help the searching visitors. What they are looking for is information because they have received a letter from “The Prize Directory” in their post. The letter tells the recipient that you have “won a valuable prize if your unique ID matches any one of over 10,000 winning ID numbers”. The prizes on offer range from a £20K Car or Cash, £5000, Shopping Vouchers or smaller cash prizes. You are given a unique number and are encouraged to contact them “NOW”. To contact them you need to phone or text – at a mere £1.50 a minute for a max 6 minutes or 6 texts which will cost you £1.50 each. Alternatively you can save yourself £9 and write in and get your claim code.
Wye Valley Promotions
Now to seasoned compers – and receivers of postal marketing offers – this may all sound very familiar. That’s because the folks behind “The Prize Directory” (Wye Valley Promotions as named on the letter) are the same folks who were behind Unclaimed Prize Register and Prize Register. You can find out just how these are linked by reviewing the companies that share the same address. These include Wye Valley Promotions who send out “The Prize Directory” letter, Strike It Lucky Games, DM PLC and Data Locator. Interestingly the latter is now the named owner of competition portals The Prize Finder and Competition Hunter. Both were previously owned by Accolade Publishing, although the main shareholder is the same for them and Data Locator!
Is It A Con?
One of the big questions asked about “The Prize Directory” is is it a con? All we will say is that we wouldn’t pay £9 to find out if we’ve won. We also wouldn’t opt to take the postal route either and instead would simply bin the letter – after opting out of receiving any further communications from them (see below). The other big question is how did they get your details? It’s hard to say and unfortunately if you enter lots of competitions then it’s quite possible that your information will be sold. To try and avoid this our advice is look out for sites owned by the companies above and make sure you’ve opted out of receiving information from them.
What To Do With Your Letter?
If you have received a letter from “The Prize Directory” then it says that you can opt-out of future mailings by contacting them by post. However what you may not know is that you can also do this via their website – type in wyevalleypromotions.com/mps/ to go to the opt-out page – fill in your details and you’ve saved yourself a stamp. Finally if you do decide to find out if you’re a winner please feel free to share your experience with us as we’d be interested to see how you got on. Hopefully you follow our advice, save yourself £9, opt-out and file the letter in the trash can.