It’s been over a year since the current trend of running win a house competitions started. This means that we’re now entering a period where a number of raffles that kicked off last year are closing or are due to close. Disappointingly there aren’t any house prize winners to report as to date only Melling Manor has successfully completed. Despite this poor success rate, new competitions are still being launched. However, can those just jumping on this bandwagon or thinking of joining it, learn from some of the earlier competitions that have now closed or extended their closing date?
Payment Issues Close Home Raffler
One competition that looked like it would reach completion was Home Raffler. A £1.25million home in Blackheath was the prize and reports on the competition’s Facebook page suggested plenty of ticket sales (120,000). The competition was due to close in May 2018 but has been pulled by the owner. They cite “circumstances out of our control” but their website suggests issues with payment providers. All entrants will be refunded and a schedule of repayments is given on the site. If you have entered this particular competition then we do advise checking out the information.
“Ruined By Paypal”
Payment providers are flagged up again by Win Your Dream Home. They claim that their initial publicity generated for the giveaway “was ruined by the Paypal decision to not support this type of competition”. As such, the £625,000 Scottish Mansion remains unsold and a cash prize will be awarded. We anticipate that details of the cash prize and winner will be announced on the website. Win Your Dream Home did have a Facebook presence but they’ve deleted it. Home Raffler have left their social media page in place but deleted most of the content. They also state that the page will “no longer be monitored and will close in 30 days”.
Online Harassment & False Allegations
We suspect that the reason behind these decisions lies with the flak that promoters receive for running these kind of competitions. Win Barns Farm Life recently extended their closing date and as a result have ended up reporting one user to the police “for online harassment and making false allegations against this competition”. Similarly, Lord Hickman, the owner of a £1million Luxury Flat near Harrods, received online abuse when his Win A Knightsbridge Flat competition failed to reach completion. Mrs C Doran of Widnes took home over £25,000 and donations made to charity, but this didn’t stop people questioning the validity of the competition.
Three Big Pitfalls
All the above gives us three big pitfalls for people looking to run a Win A Home competition. Firstly they need to make sure they have payment systems in place that accommodate win a home competitions. Fail to do this and you may end up having to refund your entrants and closing your competition. Secondly, social media is a double edged sword. It’s great for generating publicity but it can be brutal when things aren’t going well. Win A Home competition organisers need to be PR savvy and be able to deal with the good, the bad and the ugly that social media brings. Deleting pages and/or websites does nothing to convey legitimacy.
Millionaire Mansion
Finally, and quite possibly the biggest issue, is that these competitions are not selling enough tickets for houses to be won. The payment problems could be an issue but Melling Manor succeeded without hitting this stumbling block. Our view is that for these competitions to succeed the promoters need to spend more time promoting. Whether that is enough will come to light with Millionaire Mansion. They’ve done a lot of advertising on social media, websites and the radio – more so than any other win a house competition to date. The question is, will it be enough to reach a successful conclusion? For The UK’s biggest listing and most extensive insight into win a house competitions then visit our listings page on Loquax. We not only tell you about current competitions, but cover those that have closed too. Winners details are shown – where available – plus we look at the terms and conditions.