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We continue to look at the results we received from our sponsor survey, in which we asked sponsors about different aspects of sweepstakes. Here are the results we received for our question about disqualifying online entries. The responses were very interesting! Here are the top reasons why the sponsors we surveyed disqualified online entries. They are presented in descending order, with #1 being the biggest reason.
1. Duplicate entries -- This wasn't a big surprise. People are entering sweepstakes more than once, even when the rules state one entry per person or household. What was particularly interesting was one sponsor's remark: "We search by phone number." This sponsor put all of the entries into a database and searched on e-mail addresses, names, addresses, and so forth just like other sponsors, but this sponsor went one step further. He sorted by phone number. Lots of people send in entries using both a street address and a PO box, but the phone number doesn't change. Comment: We DO NOT suggest sending in more than one entry when the rules state not to, but if you wanted to do so, you might want to consider using another phone number along with your information. One small-business sponsor's remark was particularly funny. He said, "I just kinda scan the emails in the folder and if I find more than one entry from the same person I'll delete it." :-)
2. Incorrect or unreachable e-mail address -- This includes typos for e-mail addresses and arbitrary use of spam blockers causing e-mail to not be delivered to the entrant. Be sure to check your e-mail address carefully before you submit your entry. Also, if you use a spam blocker and block all mail for a particular domain, like Earthlink or Mindspring, you run a risk of not receiving your win notice. Many small companies use these ISPs, and when you block all of the mail from a particular domain, the sponsor receives a failed delivery notice such as: "Recipient is not accepting mail from this user." If you don't leave a valid phone number, a sponsor cannot reach you. It's unlikely they will send you a letter; they would just assume pick another winner.
3. Incomplete or incorrect information -- The next biggest reason was incomplete information. Most of the major sponsors code their entry forms so that you need to include all of the required information, or the system will kick back your form and give you an error message. Not all entry forms are coded that way, though. Be sure to include all of your information. For example, many sponsors responded that the space
provided for phone numbers was typically left blank. Others stated that street addresses were not provided. Instead, people would write something like: "Provided upon winning notification." These entries typically had e-mail addresses from free accounts like Hotmail, Juno, Yahoo, and so forth. It appeared like some people were trying to get in an additional entry using partial information with a free e-mail account. Incorrect answers was also a reason, although this pertained more to trivia contests.
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