We have received several comments about how Tourism Whitsundays' latest competition appeared to be mis-managed and concluded with very little professionalism, and even possibly fraud.
Fraud is a pretty strong word, which Tourism Whitsundays knows too well**. However, we believe that if a promoter of a competition does not abide by their own rules, then fraud is one of the many possible reasons for not abiding by the 'Terms and Conditions'. Many, many competitions in the past have been compromised for not obeying one rule.
So we decided to investigate.
Straight away we found a problem - It appears that 100% of the entries (120 - yes, all of them) entries in the competition were invalid before they were even posted.
The official promoter, Tourism Whitsundays, 'managed' this competition, called the "Tourism Whitsundays Facebook & Twitter Fan Page Promotions" to be run between Thursday 15 July, and 11am Friday 30 July 2010.
The winner, Phoebe McGill, was decided at 17.15 (5.15pm) on Friday 30 July 2010; (it appears the decision was made under the influence of alcohol):
There was some drama for Phoebe as her winning entry was withdrawn.
After many complaints, Tourism Whitsundays re-enlisted Phoebe as the winner, over 14 hours (and for the TW judge, a good sleep) later.
Unfortunately, we have discovered that Phoebe McGill can not be the winner, as she did not abide by the promoters' (Tourism Whitsundays) "Terms and Conditions", in particular, Rule 4:
4. Competition duration: The competition commences on Thursday 15 July, 2010 and closes at 11am (AEST) on Friday 30 July, 2010. ("Closure Time"). Entries received after the Closure Time will not be eligible.
Phoebe's entry was over 5 hours after the "Closure Time". That is when we found out that every entry was invalid.
View Terms and Conditions here. (link updated 14.45 Mon Aug 9 2010)Phoebe's entry was over 5 hours after the "Closure Time". That is when we found out that every entry was invalid.
Their comments appear to be the only posts that pass every "Term and Condition', and therefore are eligible to win the $2130+ prize of seven nights accommodation. They are:
Donna Bloedow Totally agree Jen. Being on a pension, Backpacker lodges are 'luxury' to me, so these are just divine!
The abuse of the closing time that has been so well known in advance can lead one to many conspiracy theories; lack of response or even fraud. Was this intentional, or was it the usual incompetence, or 'drinking on the job' that has really stuffed this competition up, again? Remember the Airlie Beach Apartment Giveaway flop?30 July at 10:31 ·
The above six people deserve the same prize themselves for quietly sitting by and for putting up with another poor example of Tourism Whitsundays' online marketing abilities. They appear to be the only ones eligible for the prize taken from the posts that were submitted between 9.59am and 11.00am Friday 30 July 2010.
If the person responsible for this catastrophe was employed in private enterprise, they would have been sacked by now. And let's not stop there . . . .
We are a great region but we have been let down by our RTO. Let’s not give Tourism Whitsundays anymore chances that it does not deserve and that our region cannot afford. Let’s remove the responsibilities from this bad RTO before it can do any more damage. Let’s once more make the Whitsundays the great tourism destination it deserves to be.
2 comments:
It isnt likely anything will come of the demand to make the correct entries winners too, just proves that once again I do the right thing and lose anyway...
Yes, what Jen said.
I, too, followed ALL the rules and yet again, am out in the cold.
But I feel sorry for Phoebe as it isn't really her fault. The competition organisers are the ones to blame. They could (and should) have just chosen a winner from the eligible entries, ignoring all the rest and poor Phoebe wouldn't have been dragged into this.
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