To think that the competitions on This Morning, Loose women and Lorrainne are sinister?

[Melaniaspilatesinstructor]

Maternity leave has led me to discover these shows and the competitions they trail are fascinatingly weird.
Andy Peters, Geoff Brazier, Sunita etc advertising cash prizes, cars and holidays.
Does anyone really win these?
Why is it an option to write your answer on a postcard to Derby?
Why/ how can they afford to give away such huge sums?
What do you have to do to get the job of advertising these competitions.

[user1471462290]

I agree, I was stunned to notice they charged £2 via PayPal to enter on the website, so I guess that's how they pay for them :(

[Melaniaspilatesinstructor]

It's basically like all the other gambling ads out there arm.

[Chrysanthemum5]

I remember a few years ago they made a big deal about giving all the money from one competition to charity. It was £50000 just for one days profit so they are a real money maker for them. I think legally there has to be a way you can enter the competition by post.

[BeansMcCready]

Turn off the telly. Problem solved

[Derlei]

The address they give for Derby is the Royal Mail sorting office in Derby (I was sad enough to google map it), they must have some kind of contract to handle all televised postal competitions

[leccybill]

Andi Peters- from the dizzy heights of the broom cupboard to promoting rip-off competitions on This Morning.

[WindwardCircle]

It used to be that you could enter free online, clearly that's stopped now. You're paying to enter a raffle to win the prize, not illegal or underhanded as such, but when you consider the demographic watching daytime TV is mostly going to be people not working it does leave a bad taste.

People do win though, I used to be quite into entering competitions and was part of a comping site, there were a couple of people I heard about through that who had won itv competitions. That was back in the days when online entries were free though, very few proper compers would ever pay to enter anything.

[LunaLoveg00d]

Nothing sinister - massive money making exercise. According to their website, the "win 100,000" promo is running on Good Morning Britain. £2 to enter on website. £2 plus one network charge to enter by text. £2 for a phone call. Promo is running for 3 weeks. You'd only need 15,000 people to ring in each week to cover your costs, almost. No idea how many people watch ITV breakfast telly, but a lot more than 15,000.

[Magzmarsh]

There was a huge scandal about 15 years ago about all ITV phone ins and competitions, they were definitely scams back then, now they have to adhere to strict guidelines and someone has to win in order to make them legal.

[Derlei]

I can remember a few years ago now that there was a couple trying to sell their house using a competition raffle, I think to buy a ticket it was £5 and you could buy as many as you liked, and if you won, you got the house for whatever you bought the ticket(s) for. It was anticipated the sellers were going to make much more than the going market value. I never know what happened to them and whether they went through with it to the end, I would imagine the whole thing would be full of legalities somehow

[lostincumbria]

Of course people win, it's illegal to run fake competitions. I don't know about recently, but ITV were making £10 million from these ten years ago, it subsidises the programmes. The recent move to free voting on IACGMOOH etc is because the sponsor pays to get the app on your phone.

[KurriKurri]

A good friend of mine very recently won £60,000 on the This Morning one.
So they are real and do pay out.