Cheated in Facebook competition

For anyone interested in reading the full T&Cs for the competition posted on the company's facebook page, I have reproduced them in full below with the company and competition name redacted.

- This competition is open to residents of the Republic of Ireland aged 18 years or over.
- Winners may be asked for proof of age.
- To enter this competition and be in with a chance of winning the overall prize of a KITCHENAID ARTISAN MIXER or a weekly prize of a <company name> Baking Hamper, simply watch the weekly tutorial video (posted on the <company name> Facebook Page every week) and post a photograph of your finished bake on the <company name> Facebook Page using the hashtag <competition name>
- <company name> will accept entries (photographs posted with the hashtag <competition name>) posted as comments below any of the competition posts published by <company name> during the campaign (Monday 19th June – Sunday 8th August 2017)
- Comments left under the competition Terms & Conditions note will not be accepted as an entry.
- Every week, 1 winner will be chosen and will receive a <company name> Baking Hamper.
- The entries (photographs) of the five weekly winners will be uploaded on the <company name> Facebook page on Tuesday the 8th of August and will face a public vote to determine the overall <competition name> competition winner.
- The photograph with the most ‘likes’ by 8th August will win the overall prize of a KitchenAid Artisan 4.8L Stand Mixer*
- The full competition will run from Monday 19th June – 8th August 2017
- The prize is non-transferable and non-refundable and no cash alternative will be available under any circumstances. <Company name> reserves the right to change the prize offered at any stage.
- This prize(s) can only be used by the person(s) to whom it is issued and cannot be resold.
- <company name>’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
- <company name> will contact the winner(s) via Facebook.
- <company name> will publish the name(s) of the winner(s) on Facebook. In the event that a winner(s) cannot be contacted or does not respond within 14 days to winner notification, an alternative winner will be selected from entries. Please allow 28 days for delivery of prizes.
- The Promoter reserves the right to cancel, amend, terminate, or temporarily suspend this promotion in the event of any unforeseen circumstances or technical reason outside of its reasonable control, with no liability to any entrants or third parties.
- This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You are providing your information to <company name> and not to Facebook.
- The information you provide will only be used for <company name> to choose a winner, show photos and to contact you about other competitions or about other goods and services which <company name> considers may be of interest to you.
- <company name> employees, their agents, families or anyone professionally connected with the promotion are excluded from the competition.
- <company name>, its sub-contractors, subsidiaries and/or agencies cannot accept any responsibility whatsoever for any technical failure or malfunction or any other problem, which may result in any entry, being lost or not properly registered.
- By participating in the promotion, entrants agree to be bound by these terms and conditions; any breach of these terms and conditions by a winner may result in forfeiture of their prize.
- The winner(s) must agree to publicity in a manner determined by the Promoter.
- The winner(s) may be required to take part in some promotions and photos upon the handover of the prize whereby <company name> will have the rights to use these images for their own promotions.
- Should the winner(s) not agree to such publicity, their prize may be forfeited.
- These terms and conditions shall be governed by Irish law and the courts of the Republic of Ireland shall have exclusive jurisdiction.
*Prizewinner may not be given a choice of kitchenAid colours

_Whimsical_

CeilingFly wrote: »

Another childish "you work for them" comment - no I don't work for them, but I do know who they are as its listed in a marketing journal and the company - dr oetker, is a very large and well respected company.

Op came on shouting "cheats" was very light on the facts and has been given plenty of information from various posters to confirm that what the company says is correct.


And despite all the verifiable information, some posters are suggesting small claims court!!!! Now that is ridiculous.

The SCC isn't going to do anything for the OP I don't think.

There is legal precedent though in terms of a unilateral contract being formed. Certain offers that require participation as means of entry are considered to form a unilateral offer that is accepted by participating on specified terms. Participation on those terms then does form a legal contract and give the entrant certain rights.

The OP should be entitled to see the results the competition was judged on. I think it's a mistake to believe she is without any rights here.

lifeandtimes

cfarrell wrote: »

Regarding the small claims court, earlier posters might be correct that they won't take the case. But you should call them on Monday anyway and ask them. You've nothing to lose by asking the question, and you might be surprised by their answer, or indeed they might be able to direct you to an alternative dispute resolution service.

Small claims court will not take a case regarding op entering a contest and a different winner being chosen even will albeit "controversial circumstances". Op did not pay to enter,all costs used for materials were at ops expense and no one forced op to enter

They are for people who have defrauded by companies,companies not honoring contracts or people losing costs for things etc

As advised prior there is no real case law regarding a company holding a contest and choosing a different winner as most will have terms that relieve them of this by saying their contest holder decision is final and this must be agreed too when entering the contest.

lifeandtimes

lifeandtimes wrote: »

Small claims court will not take a case regarding op entering a contest and a different winner being chosen even will albeit "controversial circumstances"

They are for people who have defrauded by companies,companies not honoring co tracts or people losing costs for things etc

As advised prior there is no real case law regarding a company holding a contest and choosing a differenr winner as most will have terms that relieve them of this by saying their contest holder decision is final and this must be agreed too when entering the contest

Yep I believe you're right, definitely not a case for the SCC I think! I do believe I have the right to satisfactory assurance that the competition was judged fairly and in accordance with the terms I entered the competition under, but I agree I have no right to ask them to overturn the decision of who the winner is.

lifeandtimes

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

The SCC isn't going to do anything for the OP I don't think.

There is legal precedent though in terms of a unilateral contract being formed. Certain offers that require participation as means of entry are considered to form a unilateral offer that is accepted by participating on specified terms. Participation on those terms then does form a legal contract and give the entrant certain rights.

The OP should be entitled to see the results the competition was judged on. I think it's a mistake to believe she is without any rights here.

As with a car park saying "management does not accept liability for any property lost,stolen or damaged on their premises" the contest runnersare covered by their decisions are final. Ultimately meaning enter at your own risk in line with the carpark warning

mahamageehad

A ha, so there were actual terms and conditions. Those seem fairly right to me so likely the competition was correctly set up and follows the rules.

Unfortunately, the winner part there says most likes but doesn't quantify how that's defined. You/they could argue it means most likes overall (which would include the likes on shares I included earlier), most reactions overall, most on-post only likes, or most on post only reactions. Interestingly enough the rules we say earlier stated likes and loves counted, but the T&Cs reference only likes specifically. Either way, they could just shut you down with the "no correspondence" clause I'm afraid.

L1011

This is getting rather over-heated again.

Accusations of the kind flying around aren't acceptable

mahamageehad

mahamageehad wrote: »

A ha, so there were actual terms and conditions. Those seem fairly right to me so likely the competition was correctly set up and follows the rules.

Unfortunately, the winner part there says most likes but doesn't quantify how that's defined. You/they could argue it means most likes overall (which would include the likes on shares I included earlier), most reactions overall, most on-post only likes, or most on post only reactions. Interestingly enough the rules we say earlier stated likes and loves counted, but the T&Cs reference only likes specifically. Either way, they could just shut you down with the "no correspondence" clause I'm afraid.

When they posted the entries for voting they stated that the entry with the most likes/love would be declared the winner. I would argue that the vast majority of participants/Facebook users would interpret the terms as they are written to mean the post with the most likes (ie visible to everyone) would win, and that this would be decided by the number of likes on the post itself. If they were to use page insights to calculate the tally in a different way it should have been clearly stated in the T&Cs as it would not be the usual way people expect a Facebook likes competition to be judged.

Interestingly the only 'explanation' I've received from the PR company is that the page insights lets them see likes from 'people who's privacy settings are set so their activity on public pages is private' (which I'm convinced isn't possible), nothing about using likes on shares to calculate the vote. So if that's what they've done it's being extra dishonest!

Edit: and yes they could refuse to enter into correspondence with me but I hope they would see the error in that because if they refuse to talk to me I'll have to keep escalating the situation to get answers...

_Whimsical_

lifeandtimes wrote: »

As with a car park saying "management does not accept liability for any property lost,stolen or damaged on their premises" the contest runnersare covered by their decisions are final. Ultimately meaning enter at your own risk in line with the carpark warning

But that sign has to be prominently displayed or at least displayed in a place and manner that members of the public reasonably might see it in order to be legally binding.

Unless the competition was presented as "most likes will win unless judges chose another entry" to the public it would be reasonable to conclude the competition would be judged on likes alone.

I think the fact that they've specified the below in the T&C should supersede "all decisions are final" in this instance.

- The photograph with the most ‘likes’ by 8th August will win the overall prize of a KitchenAid Artisan 4.8L Stand Mixer*

Fred Swanson

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mahamageehad

Deleted User wrote: »

When they posted the entries for voting they stated that the entry with the most likes/love would be declared the winner. I would argue that the vast majority of participants/Facebook users would interpret the terms as they are written to mean the post with the most likes (ie visible to everyone) would win, and that this would be decided by the number of likes on the post itself. If they were to use page insights to calculate the tally in a different way it should have been clearly stated in the T&Cs as it would not be the usual way people expect a Facebook likes competition to be judged.

Interestingly the only 'explanation' I've received from the PR company is that the page insights lets them see likes from 'people who's privacy settings are set so their activity on public pages is private' (which I'm convinced isn't possible), nothing about using likes on shares to calculate the vote. So if that's what they've done it's being extra dishonest!

Edit: and yes they could refuse to enter into correspondence with me but I hope they would see the error in that because if they refuse to talk to me I'll have to keep escalating the situation to get answers...

Depends on their definition of more likes though, and if I was that PR company I could argue that the other post got more likes in total. The extended analytics that I pointed out earlier appear in 2 places - post analytics and Insights, while the number you're referring to appears in 1 place - below the post. I completely understand your argument, I'm just saying I could defo counter argue. As an aside, we don't even know if the other post did win in this way, I just think that that's the most likely explanation.

The private likes thing has come up a few times on this thread, including in the PR explanation, and I'm pretty sure it's not possible tbh. Now, I'm not infallible, I proved myself wrong earlier, but I've never come across "private" likes. Likes on shares, yes, every day, but private on post likes that don't affect the on post counter... I'd really have to see that to believe it. Few possibilities- they're either blatantly lying to you, the person who explained it doesn't understand the extended analytics, the person who explained it doesn't think you'll understand it so they simplified it or I'm wrong completely and private likes not only exist but exist in a high enough volume (30-50 in 1000 so 3-5% of all likes?) to matter.

mahamageehad

mahamageehad wrote: »

Depends on their definition of more likes though, and if I was that PR company I could argue that the other post got more likes in total. The extended analytics that I pointed out earlier appear in 2 places - post analytics and Insights, while the number you're referring to appears in 1 place - below the post. I completely understand your argument, I'm just saying I could defo counter argue. As an aside, we don't even know if the other post did win in this way, I just think that that's the most likely explanation.

The private likes thing has come up a few times on this thread, including in the PR explanation, and I'm pretty sure it's not possible tbh. Now, I'm not infallible, I proved myself wrong earlier, but I've never come across "private" likes. Likes on shares, yes, every day, but private on post likes that don't affect the on post counter... I'd really have to see that to believe it. Few possibilities- they're either blatantly lying to you, the person who explained it doesn't understand the extended analytics, the person who explained it doesn't think you'll understand it so they simplified it or I'm wrong completely and private likes not only exist but exist in a high enough volume (30-50 in 1000 so 3-5% of all likes?) to matter.

Totally agree. I just want them to tell me what exactly they did with their data, and send me screenshots if they have them. If there's private likes I want evidence, and if they used the extended analytics I will argue it's not fair, but it's funny that if that was their argument that they didn't use it in the first place because it's more believable than private likes!

lifeandtimes

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Totally agree. I just want them to tell me what exactly they did with their data, and send me screenshots if they have them. If there's private likes I want evidence, and if they used the extended analytics I will argue it's not fair, but it's funny that if that was their argument that they didn't use it in the first place because it's more believable than private likes!

Could be that they said private likes as an easier way to explain the insights and extended matrix as it's not easily understood to be fair but yeah with the issues at the moment you think they would explain it a bit better

Eire Go Brach

I worked for a small business before. Every Facebook competition. Our best customer always won 😜

lifeandtimes

lifeandtimes wrote: »

Could be that they said private likes as an easier way to explain the insights and extended matrix as it's not easily understood to be fair but yeah with the issues at the moment you think they would explain it a bit better

I've sent them 3 messages since their original 'explanation' about the private likes so they've had plenty of opportunity to explain it better to me...

_Whimsical_

I can't see how private likes could be a thing. Isn't privacy determined by the original poster, for example if I comment on a public post by a friend my post is visible publicly including in my feed. If I comment on a post that the poster has set for a limited audience then my comment is just seen only by that audience. I can only control the privacy of my own posts, the privacy my comments and likes depend on the status of the original posters post.

njs030

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

I can't see how private likes could be a thing. Isn't privacy determined by the original poster, for example if I comment on a public post by a friend my post is visible publicly including in my feed. If I comment on a post that the poster has set for a limited audience then my comment is just seen only by that audience. I can only control the privacy of my own posts, the privacy my comments and likes depend on the status of the original posters post.

Yeah it isn't a thing. My profile is completely locked down but if I comment on a friends page who has a public setting or 'like' a public post I can see in my activity log that it's shown publicly.

Yeah you're both right and I've sent the company the relevant section of the Facebook privacy policy to the company to dispute their private likes claim so looking forward to seeing what they come back with...(so far they have been refusing to respond to my complaints with anything other than 'we're right and that's it')

L1011

It's incredibly unlikely they'll change who they have declared as winner - at best you may embarrass a second mixer out of them. If you want to be declared winner, expect to spend months fighting and no result. If you want the kitchen aid, keep at it.

L1011

L1011 wrote: »

It's incredibly unlikely they'll change who they have declared as winner - at best you may embarrass a second mixer out of them. If you want to be declared winner, expect to spend months fighting and no result. If you want the kitchen aid, keep at it.

Nah I know it's not worth fighting over being declared winner, their T&Cs has them covered there. I want them to prove to me they judged the competition fairly, and if they can't provide that proof a mixer would be a welcome apology :P

rubadub

CeilingFly wrote: »

the company managing the page us is a respected company and the company the page belongs to is a multinational company.

CeilingFly wrote: »

no I don't work for them, but I do know who they are as its listed in a marketing journal and the company - dr oetker, is a very large and well respected company.

So can you tell us who this respected marketing company is? If not why not? there is no "name & shame" going to be happening -in your mind anyway, as you think they have done absolutely nothing wrong and you say they are respected.

I would not touch them with a bargepole, and will be warning the company I work for about stuff like this. The negative publicity will cost them a lot more than a second mixer -both for the marketing company and dr oetker.

It seems people do not publicly see these insights results -I would expect a "respected" marketing company to be fully aware of this, and so be fully aware of disputes like this happening.

A company I would respect would have a plan for a situation like this -if the insights software thing really did show a winner, and the public viewing the page saw another winner then I would have a plan to declare joint winners and explain it. 600 is nothing to a big company (I doubt it cost them 600 either) and they would have got a lot of kudos. It would be fairer on the guy who got the mixer too.

Instead seems they made a right mess of it all.

CeilingFly

rubadub wrote: »

So can you tell us who this respected marketing company is? If not why not? there is no "name & shame" going to be happening -in your mind anyway, as you think they have done absolutely nothing wrong and you say they are respected.

.

Not for me to give names on someone else's thread - name ends with "H" - so the Op can confirm that. They were around whne I wordked in advertising in the late eighties, so well established.

On insights - here's an example from one post I did

219
Likes

174 On post
45 On shares

102 Love
74 On post
38 On shares

1Haha
0 On post
1 On shares

20 Wow
16 On post
4 On shares

etc...

Only the "on post" likes and emotions show on the post. So if you saw the post, you'd see that 296 people like or emoted the post, but I see that 353 people have liked or emoted the post.

That's a 20% "unseen" by public likes.

On getting a snapshot for a specific time once that time has past - Facebook don't provide that option. It keeps updating and you can just get the overall insights, so unless a screenshot is taken at precisely 2pm, they won't be able to provide it.

I reckon if the OP had approached this differently, a different outcome would have been had. But caloing out "Cheated on FB" did not do her any favours.

mahamageehad

Ceilingfly on your point re point in time metrics, it's not exactly true but a screenshot at the time would have been easiest. I know of 2 tools- origami logic and Sprinklr that can pull this info, and I'm sure there's plenty more. Now, I've never needed to be that to the minute accurate with data, so some testing would need to be done to account for things like API delays but it is theoretically possible. It's possible the agency/company doesn't have access to enterprise level tools though.

On the agency thing, I neither know nor care who the agency in this case is, but I will say I'm been shocked and disgusted at some of the social media "advice" I've seen even from established agencies in the last 3 or 4 years. Hell, recently I was involved in vetting 2 global social specific agencies with all the accolades and trimmings and half of what they told us was wrong or out of date. Very disappointing.

c6ysaphjvqw41k

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CeilingFly

CeilingFly wrote: »

Not for me to give names on someone else's thread - name ends with "H" - so the Op can confirm that. They were around whne I wordked in advertising in the late eighties, so well established.

On insights - here's an example from one post I did

219
Likes

174 On post
45 On shares

102 Love
74 On post
38 On shares

1Haha
0 On post
1 On shares

20 Wow
16 On post
4 On shares

etc...

Only the "on post" likes and emotions show on the post. So if you saw the post, you'd see that 296 people like or emoted the post, but I see that 353 people have liked or emoted the post.

That's a 20% "unseen" by public likes.

On getting a snapshot for a specific time once that time has past - Facebook don't provide that option. It keeps updating and you can just get the overall insights, so unless a screenshot is taken at precisely 2pm, they won't be able to provide it.

I reckon if the OP had approached this differently, a different outcome would have been had. But caloing out "Cheated on FB" did not do her any favours.

Well done, but we've already established that the page insights lets the page owner see on post and off post likes. It's still very easy to distinguish between the two, and the point made is usingoff-post likes to determine the winner is very misleading because no one else can see that number, it wasn't specified in the T&Cs, and is massively open to abuse because as was proven by another poster in this thread, if someone likes a post and likes a share of the post, their 'like' ends up counted twice in insights if off-post likes are taken into account ; and this could be abused to give tens, hundred of extra likes. I'm not saying it was or wasn't but the fact that it's a possibility should rule it out as a method of counting votes in any fair competition. Furthermore, if the off post insights is the explanation for the discrepancy, why didn't they say that to me rather than making up lies about private likes on public pages?

I'm not sure if you've ever taken a screenshot before but it literally involves nothing more than pressing a button on a keyboard, if they were judging the votes at exactly 2pm (which they should have been) it wouldn't have been a particularly difficult task.

I'm curious as to what actions you think I should have taken? I've been in private communication with the company involved, I haven't said anything about them publicly, despite their completely uncooperativeness thus far. I started this thread to find out if there was any regulatory body I could contact for advice, I never expected to it to generate as much discussion as it has, but keep in mind I have not named anyone or any company in this thread (you were happy enough to do so) so I'm not sure exactly what is you think I've done wrong.

Aubrie White Badminton

Aubrie White Badminton wrote: »

This has already been explained to her by a number of people on the thread but she just refuses to accept it. Personally if I was that company I would keep screenshots of the winner from 2pm on Insights when I checked it, to cover myself for things like this. She could ask them if they did so and to share it, but they probably didn't.

What am I refusing to accept? I never disputed that page insights allows the page owner to see both on-post likes and likes on shares. The company hasn't offered that to me as an explanation however, they instead made up an excuse about 'private likes on public pages', which no one so far has offered any proof of.

c6ysaphjvqw41k

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c6ysaphjvqw41k

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Aubrie White Badminton

Aubrie White Badminton wrote: »

Have you specifically asked them to share the insights they used to judge from 2pm that day? A screenshot. Of the insights from 2pm, and they refused to or cant provide it? I know you talked to them about how you had more likes on the photo but they used the insights to judge, did you specifically ask for that?

A like is a like if its through shares or not, I don't see why it shouldn't count? It said the most number of likes, those are still likes. It seems like the only mistake they made was not being able to provide you with proof that the other person won through a screenshot of the Insights from 2pm that day, if you asked for it. Even still, it doesn't matter.

Besides...you agreed to their T&C by entering:

- Dr. Oetker Ireland’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Did you read my post above about how basing the vote on likes no one else can see and on a system that can be abused to get more likes is an unfair way to judge a competition? I could have shared my entry 100 times on my page and liked each share, giving myself an extra 100 votes if they took the likes from shares into account.

I have specifically asked them to explain how they judged the competition, and which metrics they used. They have yet to provide me with an answer.

As I have already said multiple times in this thread, I am aware their decision is final, I did actually read the T&Cs for the competition before I entering. I am not asking them to overturn their decision of the winner I'm asking them to prove they judged the competition fairly which I believe I have a right to.