Hi everyone
Thanks for your feedback.
We do try extremely hard to make competitions as fair as possible and we are also prepared to take responsibility when things go wrong.
Due to the last minute nature of this comp, we didn't want any disappointed winners to miss out, so we asked the competition host to collect the entry details and contact the winners directly so that, we thought, there would be no hitches . We did all this in good faith and with the best of intentions. Sadly all did not go according to plan and we are sorry about this. We are completely on your side here and fighting your corner as best we can. We, like you, were appalled that the draw took place early, but once this had happened, the only other option was to declare the draw invalid so noone could win and this didn't seem fair on those Mumsnetters who had been told that they had won and no doubt told their children.
We do share your frustration and disappointment , but sadly this mistake was out of our control. We have however learned a very valuable lesson from this, that no matter how great the prize, we need to ensure that we're 100% happy with the way the winners are chosen and the prizes distributed, and ideally we need to remain in control of this process from start to finish.
We're really sorry that some of you have been disappointed by this competition and we promise to ensure that we have another ITNG comp asap - prepared well in advance and run by MNHQ - to give you all another shot at winning Thanks
Yours sheepishly
MNHQ