Read the Rules – a cautionary tale!

You hereby grant us an exclusive licence to use, edit, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, make available and display your video… As this licence is exclusive, you are agreeing that only we may use your video so please don’t upload it anywhere else.

Unfortunately we have had to remove your video from the competition as you also entered it into the Crown Carvery competition. We have had someone onto us saying that they shall take us to watch dog regarding your video and how you have violated the terms and conditions. I ignored them as your video had been removed from the Crown Carvery competition however they are still threatening us as you did violate the terms. 

I clearly wasn’t quick enough to realise my mistake – and now my video is in neither competition (although I’m sure it will come in handy for future comps!). As for the tell-tale, I have my suspicions – he has an entry himself in both these competitions and from his track record of wins (he’s a very accomplished and talented filmmaker, singer and music producer) I’m certain he’ll win both the £1000 prizes!

So please learn from my mistakes and read the rules thoroughly before entering a competition! Many Facebook competitions now require you to post your entry on the Wall and email it to them – entrants in the recent Tesco Diets recipe competition were disqualified because they forgot to do this, what a nightmare when you’ve taken the time to make a video too.

A good current example is the weekly competition at the Isklar Facebook page – the most voted entry each week wins a makeover and there’s a £50 voucher spot prize for the judge’s favourite entry. To enter, you have to watch a video and upload a photo of yourself completing the fashion/modelling challenge revealed in the film. I discovered the competition at the end of last week when there was much banter on the Wall complaining that the most voted entry hadn’t won – this was because she hadn’t included an ‘accessory’ in the photo as stated in the rules! I entered myself in last week’s competition, where the challenge was to do a Victoria Beckham style trout pout – a cursory glance through the entries revealed only a handful of proper pouts in there, and I won the weekly spot prize of £50 Reiss vouchers despite only having 15 votes (the top entrants had hundreds, but again they weren’t pouting so were disqualified!) Considering all the silly embarrassing things I’ve done this year, because I look so serious in this photo it’s probably my most cringeworthy.

For the current Isklar competition, you have to upload a photo doing something festive and there are 4 (judged) spot prizes to be won, so it’s worth a go – this closes on 4th January.

And there ends today’s lesson – PLEASE read those Terms and Conditions before ticking the box to say you did!