To ask what's the worst thing you've ever won in a competition or raffle?

[ChunkyKnit]

Blatantly based on the other thread

When I was 12, I won a vinyl record of Bill Cosby’s greatest hits at a raffle.

We didn’t own a record player, and I wasn’t a Cosby fan.

I asked the lady running the raffle if I could swap it for another prize but she gave me a very firm “no”. I’m still bitter.

@EbbandTheWanderingHearts

A tin of green lentils.

Hey, lentil bolognese. Don’t knock it.

A ‘mr and Mrs’ card game - a few months after I separated from my husband of 15 years...
Also memorable was a brown hair dye, not even a brand I recognised. I’m a bottle blonde.
School tombolas!

A weird egg-shaped rugby ball that was sort of hexagonal/abstract/asymmetrical and no use for any sporting activity whatsoever - I left it in the garden for the foxes to play with - they didn't seem to mind what shape their new toy was.

I'm sure I can't be the only one who has had an e-mail telling me I'd 'won' but when you open it you didn't win a prize in the comp, just 'won' a small discount voucher if you spend a bomb with the comp-running company - damn cheek!

I've won a couple of things that were not generally too bad, just bad for me - like food I'm allergic too, but my better half & his business partner happily scoffed, and alcohol I can no longer drink so my brother whipped that away pretty lively. I don't win much, despite my efforts, but I tend to only enter comps for things I'd like, can use, can share or know someone that would love it. Did win a lovely hamper once and we were looking forward to 'luxury' contents, but one of 'our' foxes was hurt, so we ended up donating some cash and the hamper to the project that came to help our fox and bring it back when healthy again.

Good thread though and some funny/awful/strange prizes some of you have 'won'

My cousin gave me an ugly white ceramic figurine of a turkey as a wedding present. It was about the same size as a blow-up beach ball so rather big. Somehow it accidentally got lost on purpose when we moved house.

Nipple tassels. At a school raffle.

A washing-up sponge on a stick! Fun fun 🥴

A jar of Asda own brand mayonnaise.

A bottle of Bell's whisky.
I was 14!
And I hate whisky!

A CD of all the Jingles from a double glazing company.

A box of cigars when I was 9

Not quite the same but I used to go to Sunday School as a kid. I remember them handing out Christmas presents to us all. One year, aged about 7, I opened mine and I was extremely excited to find one of those long, box pencil cases where you press the buttons and the sharpener pops out etc. Some of my friends had one and I’d always wanted one. Just as I opened it one of the grownups grabbed it off me and said ‘that’s not for you’ and handed me another gift which was a plain geometry set in a tin.
The memory of the disappointment still pains me to do this day!

I won the first prize in a raffle for the first time ever and was thrilled to win a gardener for the day (a local guy had volunteered their services). I was very pleased because I had little time to do my gardening at that time and had been stressing about the state of the garden. However when I called to arrange it, I was told his wife could no longer spare him. A few days later I got a card and a cheap bottle of wine saying ‘sorry’. I was gutted because I could have chosen something else. There was a box of expensive wines for example that I could have chosen.

While on holiday in Devon, I won the top prize of fertilizer, cow worming pills, and other stuff that would only benifit a local.

They werent happy...

My brother won a race and got a partly used tub of hair gel.

Other prizes included running shoes!

Not something I won but at my first proper job for secret santa at a school, I had spent ages trying to find something lovely for the lady I got for the £10 spend. I didn't know her at all but I felt that as a generic gift it would be appreciated. I got something from someone who had clearly forgotten about the whole thing - it was one of those tat tiny notebooks which is covered in jewels and a matching pen. The pen didn't even work. It was awful because literally everyone else got something at least worth £10. I was devastated, particularly as it was my first secret santa

A bread warmer - a stone disc thing that you heat up and slip into a basket with your bread rolls before serving a la Hyacinth Bucket.

A box of femidoms and lube at a race night - it was the prize donated by a local chemist who sponsored a table

6 pan scrubbers. They were at least useful

When I was helping out at a church coffee morning, there was a raffle and my dd won a lovely big box of Belgian Chocolates, which she was really excited about.

When we got home she wanted to open them. When I went to hand them to her I noticed what looked like tiny mites around the chocolates. Looking closely at the box I found a best before date, the chocolates were more than 6 years out of date! I knew there had been 2 boxes of the same chocolates so I phoned the organiser. When I told her there were mites in the chocolates and how out of date there were she got very defensive and just said that she hadn’t been able to find any bb date and she had thought they looked okay. I told her how disappointed my dd was and she just said sorry about that and put the phone down.

I later found out she had contacted the person who had won the other box (turned out to be one of the ministers daughters) and had given her another box of chocolates as a replacement, whereas my daughter got nothing. Dd was really upset and I was really annoyed as I thought this was double standards and very unfair, plus I had spent a whole day baking and had donated (in date) prizes for the tombola and raffle!

Needless to say, the next time they had a coffee morning and asked me to bake and help, I just said sorry I couldn’t!

My sister won a Christmas songs CD, in July, which had been given away free in a newspaper the previous Christmas!

I hope you told them why @Playmysong! What an unkind thing to go to replace one prize but not the other!

Employee of the month. It was voted for by all employees.

Previous recipients had won £10 gift cards.
I got nothing as the boss “couldn’t afford it”.

At another coffee morning, the person calling out the names in the raffle had young children taking the prizes to the winners. It was so disorganised and the winners weren’t getting the correct prizes. My husband’s name was called out for a Bubble Bath and Soap gift set. Despite him putting his hand up, someone else got that prize and he got nothing.

The last prize was the star prize, a hamper, with malt whisky, wine, expensive chocolates etc. If the raffle had been run properly the hamper would have went to one of the earlier tickets pulled out. However, guess who’s ticket was pulled out....mine!! I definitely made sure that I got that prize. My husband got nothing for his ticket being pulled out, but I was delighted the raffle was such a fiasco, when my ticket was pulled out and I got my lovely prize.

I won a pair of control pants which were far too big for me.

Won a 'pampering party' which was in fact just a multi-level marketing scam by a woman who was being very annoying on her stall and wasn't going to be allowed back to our school fair.

Luckily I realised as soon as I opened the envelope, had a rant to my friend who was on the PTA, and they gave me a nearly-full bottle of wine from the bar instead, so result.