Online competitions

[HelpMeGrowMyHairLong]

I entered a competition online. Do you know one of those - like, share, tag - posts. It's from a small business owner in my community. It had an end date for today/this evening.

I checked online and there is no update or winner announcement. That's very strange, is it not? Surely some sort of a draw should have happened by now and an announcement but there was nothing.

Anyone have experienced of these competitions? How long does it usually take. I could understand a long processing time if it was a larger company and hundreds or even thousands of people/entries. From what I saw online, it's approx 80 people or entries across two platforms.

I just think it's a bit odd how it was supposed to end tonight but there was no real finish or announcement to it.

I agree with pp, maybe don’t enter any more competitions as they clearly cause you some anxiety. You might not like the way they’ve handled it but you can’t change it so step away and focus on something else.

They could have provided details of a draw after taking information for a competition. Other small businesses can provide clarity and details on their competitions.

Seriously, step away. I am worried for your mental health. I'm not being glib. Your obsession is unhealthy and doing you no good at all .

I enter these type of competitions regularly, some are great at announcing the winner/s and others will say winner/s have been notified. Others sometimes take a few days after the draw closes to announce the winner/s.
Like pp have said, you seem a little obsessed over what is the luck of the draw. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

It's wrong for a company or business to run a competition and provide no transparency. Because they are taking people's details at the end of the day and I think it's wrong not to provide any information about about the competition and draw.

Come to think of it, at Christmas time a local shop ran a raffle for a few weeks selling lines. There was a date for a draw and there was online live feed/video of names in a hate and a draw pull. That was a small business too by the way.

I think it's not fair to leave it open, that's all and it should have been wrapped up a d brought to a close with announcing a winner.

Oh god, chill out.

Friend of mine runs a small business, last month she had a competition running that had 300 entries ending on March 16th. Her mother died March 14th. unsurprisingly a competition was not her focus. You've no idea what happened, chill the fuck out

But that's your friend.

I know in my situation, and the small business I am talking about - there wasn't even half of that amount of entries that you wrote about and there was no death in his family.

There is no excuse in the world for him not to update his socials and brings that competition to a close.

I think it's wrong to run a competition, take details and not provide any transparency. I also think that should be made illegal. Maybe under data protection laws. I think anyone running a competition, taking other peoples information for competitions, should by law have clear terms and conditions.

OP I agree it's annoying and I agree that the business has been sloppy.

But, situations like this occur every day. People forget to do things or they are disorganised, emergencies happen, someone else lets them down, tech meltdowns happen... There is no end to the reasons why things don't happen as they should. And OP, like it or not sometimes it will be you who doesn't do the right thing. I know this to be true, because you are a human being.

Human beings also get annoyed. That's fine. But they let things go. It is really not healthy to be so angry for so long about something that is not at all important. If this is how you react to small inconveniences how on earth do you cope with bigger ones? Your blood pressure must be sky high and you must be difficult to live with.

For your own sake you need to gain a sense of perspective about things which don't work perfectly.

Maybe they've been taken ill. Maybe they'll draw it at a convient time for their business. Maybe they're on annual leave. Maybe they just forgot.
They're human!

Just because it closes 8pm Sunday doesn't mean it has to be drawn immediately
Maybe it has and just contact the winner directly.

But you don’t know what happened, you’ve no idea why it hasn’t been announced. Maybe they have contacted the winner privately and are waiting for a response, maybe they have no intention of announcing the winner publicly. Maybe something has happened that you don’t know about (despite thinking you should be privy to all information) and they’ll draw it next weej

But if there is an issue what is wrong with a social media post informing people who entered the competition. If thed don't intend on announcing a winner, what is wrong with a post to say winner has been drawn and contacted by private message.

If they are going to draw it at a convener time for the business whenever that is going to be - what is wrong with informing the people who entered of just that. Say for example if they don't intend on having a draw for days or weeks or whatever - why not just tell people of that? How hard is it to give a date for the draw?

Or if it's already been drawn what's wrong with a social media post to inform people.

I really don’t understand all the angst for a competition. You really do need to let this one go. You can’t change other people, only your reaction to them. I also wonder how you deal with stuff in life when you obsess over little things like this. It can’t be good for you OP

This is some replies from chatGTP and I suppose it articulates what I am feeling.

It's actually despicable to run a competition and not bring it to a close.

Seriously just forget about it...surely you'd have been contacted if you'd won?

The word despicable is totally out of proportion for this situation.

Despicable 😂😂 fucking hell.

Use ChatGPT to write a letter to the owner of the company demanding an explanation. Something along the lines of “I don’t give a shit what the reason is, that means nothing to me, I demand to know who won the competition as it should probably be me. It’s despicable that you have done this”

I think it’ll go down really well

This is crazy. It was presumably an Insta/fb type giveaway by a small business that ended on Sunday - it's been a long weekend of bank holidays and the first business day back is today. They've probably been catching up on actual orders/getting kids back to school/catching up on actual business enquiries/packing and sending out orders, all of which are more important than drawing a random name out of a virtual hat.

It's not despicable 🤣 it's a first world problem that you're obsessing over. Give them a chance to catch up and then send a polite enquiry as to when the winner will be notified.

What on earth was the prize to have got you this over-invested in it?
Jeez, I'm all for entering competitions but this obviously isn't for you - just enter it, forget about it and be happy if you're lucky enough to win. It's not worth getting stressed over!