Comping Newbies

[nutbrownhair]

Aha - now i see one of the cool reasons for Mumsnet being so popular - a site that actually offers some pennies along with the fun and debates! So, i see i will be 'stopping by' often in hopes of actually winning something in a competition - please could we have some prizes for mums with older kids, like deathwish skateboarders/extreme sports heads! thx if u can! (like the Alton Towers btw)

Anyone do Full-time Comping for a hobby? a woman on the radio added up her year's prizes and it came to £40 000!

Just looking at the lovely prizes on mumsnet but What does upload a review mean. I thought it meant submit a review but on the competition below it uses the word submit or upload.

I've not had time to pop into MN for ages, but I'm a pretty keen comper and am hoping I can earn a living doing it rather than going back to work when my maternity leave is over! I've started a blog about it too, if you're new to the hobby it might motivate you to start doing it more seriously. I won a fab Britax car seat here on Mumsnet while I was pregnant!

super-lucky.blogspot.com

That is intensely annoying for those of us who are actual mumsnetters and who might want to enter a 'comp' once in a while - it seems wrong for someone to visit the site purely to enter a competition, since this is very much a community.

well said GK, I don't suppose there is much that can be done about it though...unless MN hand pick the winners each time (lol only joking, kinda )

Here Here

and the new competitions page has links from comping websites apparently-it annoys me if the site is going to get swamped by 'professionals'-I have never won anything yet but I usually recognise a lot of the names who do win as regulars

What GingerKirsty said.

Agree with GK (and everyone else who agreed with her).

I've been lucky enough to 'win' some product testing items (no hard cash as yet ) but it would be disappointing if the prizes started getting scooped by 'pros' all the time.

I'm an 'oldie' and I don't enter the competitions anyway so it doesn't affect me personally BUT I do think it is pretty unfair that people are joining just to freeload off the 'comping'. I don't know what the fix is though.

To my mind it's similar to what happened with the for sale/wanted boards.

it's difficult to police

I suppose if, say, you had to have a certain number of posts to participate some professionals would come and go "......" on a thread every so often to qualify.

I sometimes wondered why I never ever won any competitions, until I read that some people enter 50 a day! Now I know why entering three a year doesn't yield much success.

god, who can be arsed ?

'Professional comper' makes me think of women who read Take a Break et al. [judgy]

Same as 'Professional gambler' makes me think of a 40 year old fat bloke who still lives with his mum, is on benefits or sponging off his parents and plays online poker 24/7.

[uber judgy]

in his childhood bedroom....

Had never had a desire to be a 'professional' competition entrant, but did once win a trip for 2 adults + 2 children to Lapland from Littlewoods (catalogues) based on a maths problem (Santa and how long it would take to go around the Arctic Circle)...

Prize took us to the Arctic Circle, plus 2 nights in [airport] hotel + meals + spending money for warm clothes.

At the time, the cash was handy as my firm had given me the boot (and made 9 other people redundant), but was able to take my sister and nephew (6 or 7) and enjoy Snowmobile and other 'winter snow' resort features [not that keen on lots of fish though]).

At least knowing it can happen means I never think "always someone else, never me", so for those who only go in for 1 every blue moon, keep thinking positive as it can happen, honest!