Back in June a new win a house platform emerged onto the market. Called Ruffle, this site offered visitors the chance to win a million pound dream home in Solihull. Ruffle adopted the Omaze approach for their platfom. Players could purchase entries from just £10 although if you spent more this resulted in extra benefits such as free entries to a holiday draw. The £10 spend though was good value as it got you house draw entries and free entry to weekly draws which offered £1000 prizes. The main prize draw was scheduled to close in December but the site has actually closed four months early. Sadly this isn’t because Ruffle has been a successful venture and ticket sales flew. The site has closed citing “unforeseen challenges” which “made it impossible for them to continue”. All social media pages have been removed although the Ruffle website remains in place explaining in detail what’s now happening with respect to entrants who have paid money to enter the million pound dream home draw.
Ruffle Refunds
If you’ve purchased tickets to enter the Ruffle prize draw then you should get a refund automatically. If you’ve not received a refund within 30 days then you’re advised to email [email protected]. If Ruffle are unable to process your refund automatically then they’ll refund you manually. Details of this process should be emailed to you. According to the website “everyone who has bought tickets will be eligible for a refund, even if you have already received a prize”. It’s unclear whether the refund will be the full price of the ticket purchase or the the price minus any initial payment gateway costs. We suspect that it will be the former. Hopefully entrants who have purchased tickets will find the refund process smooth and quick. Please let us know in the comments if you do or don’t get a refund. We are disappointed Ruffle have removed their social media pages though because they’re always useful to communicate issues and updates as well as on the website.
What Were The Challenges?
Ruffle haven’t given any details about the “unforeseen challenges” that has resulted in the closure of their platform. The most obvious challenge could be that they just weren’t selling enough tickets and made the brave decision to get out early rather than do a Win A Nottingham Villa (keep the prize draw running and then offering a paltry £5000 prize as a token of goodwill). The business needed to bring in revenue to cover weekly £1000 prizes and £5000 holiday prizes as well as the house, BMW M3 Touring Car worth £90,000 and £50,000 cash. On top of that they would have had admin costs, marketing costs and charity donations that were going towards The Myton Hospices. By the way we don’t know if The Myton Hospices are getting anything from Ruffle. New win a house platforms have to compete with the likes of Omaze, Tramway Path, Bounty Competitions and many others. Unfortunately newcomers to the market are sadly seen with a sense of suspicion. This isn’t the site’s fault but it’s thanks to the actions of Win Amazing and Nottingham Villa damaging the reputation of the win a house market. Sensible players will initially only spend a few pounds with a new site or more likely – and as we often advise – wait until nearer the closing date before parting with their cash.
What Next For Ruffle?
It’s unclear whether this is the end of Ruffle or just a temporary glitch? The website states “While this chapter of Ruffle.org is closing, we want to express our heartfelt thanks for your support. Once again, we apologise for any inconvenience and disappointment this closure may cause, and appreciate your kindness and understanding during this transition”. That statement kind of suggests a new chapter of Ruffle may eventually open and that the brand is transitioning to something else? If they do return we’d be surprised if it was to offer another property. It’s hard enough setting up a site and running a win a house competition let alone trying to do it again on a platform that’s essentially failed first time round. We do like to see new house competition platforms so it would be nice to see them relaunch but suspect that it’ll be very unlikely. They could potentially return as a pay to enter site that offers other prizes but even that market is a tough one to enter and succeed in!
No Joy For Revvl Either
To emphasise that point another win a house alumni has also faced challenges. CwellynDream managed to complete one successful property prize draw. They then followed this up with a substantial cash payment in their second attempt. The owners of CwellynDream recently launched Revvl but that too is now just an announcement splash page. They were offering an Ultimate British F1 Grand Prix prize but that competition has now closed. Revvl explain that “We are very sorry to announce that due to technical complications with our payment system that are beyond our control, we will be unable to continue with our current competition”. They hope to be up and running again in the future. In theory Ruffle could have been hit by similar payment issues. Some payment gateways consider “raffles” or pay to enter competitions akin to gambling and don’t like to operate with sites in the sector. However we’d have thought companies that are giving away houses or bucket list prizes would have sorted that particular potential concern beforehand.
Pay To Enter Sites Are Easy To Start – Hard To Run
The internet is strewn with pay to enter sites and win a house competitions set up by people who think it’s an easy road to riches. The build it and they will come ideal just doesn’t wash anymore neither does just adding a competition on Raffall and expecting five pound notes to come flooding down. Pay to enter sites require a lot of work, transparency and money. You need to be advertising to even potentially get on the same page as Omaze, Tramway Path, Bounty, McKinney and Elite (plus many others). If you can build an attentive, interactive and willing to spend money audience on social media then that helps a lot but you’re always at the mercy of Facebook not shutting you down. On top of that you then need to make sure you’re working hard to keep everyone engaged. It’s all well and good having a social media audience (or perhaps buying followers) but if they’re not spending cash on your competitions then that’s no good. It is sad to see the likes of Ruffle close down, but it does act as a reminder that it isn’t an easy process. On a positive note at least the owners decided to close early and refund entrants rather than string everyone along.