Competition listing sites

To round up the competition project I ran earlier here are a few links to websites that you can find lists of competitions and a mini review of each one.

ThePrizeFinder

A good site with plenty comps listed, ignore the ones on the center in the middle just go straight to the list of ones in closing soon!. If you enter by a date, you can make the most effective use of your time. Once you finish on this site, work your way down my mini list!.

LoQuax

Another top site with a rather active forum of pro-compers, there listing of comps is great too. Check out the forum to see the winners posts, to give an idea of what other pro-compers are winning.

UkWins

Another great site for listings of competitions. Between these three sites you should get 90% of known online comps.


The only thing to master when using these sites, is not entering a competition more then once - as this can often render your entry void. I wish you luck if you wish to have a crack at this yourselves and if you win anything let us know!.

Conclusion of my mini compo project

Well I can draw some conclusions from my mini competition running experiment now.

• In the 3 odd weeks of entering on-line only competitions I managed to bag myself 3 prizes. 2 1st prizes and a 2nd prize. My grand total is just shy of £50 in prizes.
• Checking my emails and snail mail was fun again, nice to find the odd jiffy bag turn up with some goodies in! :).
• Pro-comp runners say they can win £2,000 worth of prizes per a month. But don't forget £2000 of prizes (aka random tat) is not £2,000 in your hand!. Unless you can shift the gear you win, there wont be no point in winning prizes you don't want or need!. (eg, in eBay, work notice board or at a car boot sale!).
• There are other competitions to enter, including postal and SMS (phone) based ones. This could turn out to be expensive if you don't keep tabs on what you are doing.
• The busy time in any pro-comper is the end of the month, but the best time to enter comps is at least a week before there stated closing date. This is because some jobsworth's like to close competitions early to make way and prepare for the next one they could be running.
• The second most busiest time is the end of the weeks!, much like the same reasons above.
• Yes I will do it again when I have more time!
  

A little story of a past compo

Here's a little story for you regarding comps; maybe a little something to add fuel to your fire!.

A friend of mine who we shall refer to as Mr Big tells me that a well known uk mustard company once had a competition. The prize in this competition was a brand new car. One of his friends used to work for this company and was part of the team tasked with dealing with this competition in question.

In the end, this competition only ended up having a grand total of 17 entries. That means if you had a single ticket in this competition you had a 1 in 17 chance chance of winning a car. If only I was interested in comp running and spotted that back in the day.

For the sake of completeness, Mr Big is still alive and at large in the community.

Another win from an unkown source!

Well I won something else, but this time I have no clue as to where it came from or what competition I entered to win it!. Turned up in a jiffy bag today with nothing else other then the dvd "The laughing man" "ghost in the shell : stand alone complex". Not sure what its worth, time to go have a gander on play.com I think!.

So far I have won three prizes from this little project, none to shabby in my mind for something thats only taken a little time.

2nd prize prize!

Only gone and won something else, this time as a runner up.

From www.gillmarine.com I have won myself a second prize of a gill wallet. Found for sale at a grand total of £7.40p from some online seller!

Only a tiny prize this time, but still a prize!. I am now currently working on a magical scheme to earn some money from the great online, it may pan out or it may not. Stay tuned for the results soon!.

Real life booty!

Look at this, my 1st win has turned up, proof that people do win stuff. Just wanted to put a post up show you lot of my booty!.

Not much to say about it, as it is what you see. Three board games from winning moves. Each look like there worth about a tenner. Got a mini game catalog and winners slip saying congratulations and with compliments also.

Now I continue to enter the competitions, however for the next few days I have something else on so I will only concentrate on the ones I want to win!. When I have a little more time I will get back into the full swing and enter everything under the sun again.

Another update on my pro-compo running

Well About time for another update about my competition running. This time I shall concentrate on the tools to get the job done.

I have tried my hand at a few plug-ins for web browsers that help you fill in online forms faster. If I can enter competitions faster, I can be in more draws per an hours work!. Here's my little review of the ones I have tried;


Roboform

Does do the job, but not always spot on - does help reduce the overall typing required but has a habit of messing up on address information for me. Highly customizable and with some further tinkering I expect it can be made to do what you need. Rather heavy on the system resources, for some reason demands to be in your task bar and started up at boot time. The pro version of this costs as well.


Google toolbar

The Google toolbar has a form fill option present, however it leaves a lot to be desired. Only seems to get half of anyone form that needs filling in, rather lack luster if you ask me. There are other things in this toolbar that could make it worth while for some of you out there.


Autofill Forms (FireFox plug in)

I think this is the best of the ones tried so far, customizable small and not so resource heavy. Doesn't even use any space inside the browser (like the other toolbars) other then a tiny pencil icon in the task bar at the bottom. To begin with this performs as well as Google toolbar, however after much customizing you get it to act as you want. Adding rules can be a little tricky but lucky for me I have a background in programming!. On the whole I give this one two thumbs fresh!.


If you want links to these, leave a message or else this post will be lost to the sands of time!.

My 1st win!

Well would you Adam and Eve it, I only gone and won something from the radio times!.

Not bad for around two weeks work. Its three games, Sudoku, Double quick and the Da Vinci code-The game. I best go off and do some research to see if there any good. If there not then its off to good old e-bay!.

Don't belive me?. Well check out this link for "Stephen Greener". Its in the MAGAZINE WINNERS 19–25 APRIL (week 17) section.

Compo running update

Well its been about a week now of me entering competitions, no wins yet - but I figure its a little early to expect any wins yet anyway. One thing I have noticed is that the busy time for any pro-comp runner is the end of the month as this is the time when most of them close. However some competition organisers like to close there competitions before there stated closing date. Most likely to set up the next one.

If your going to do this for yourselves you will want to be entering competitions at least a week before the closing date.

As for the expected increase in spam, not really seen much yet - but alas its only been a single week!. More on that in the future.

To my mind, for this week I figure I have entered at least 800 competitions, not bad for someone with spare time on his hands!.

I started a compo project

Just spend the best part of yesterday and today entering as many online competitions as I could find. All with closing dates in the future, spousal reputable company's that give an opt out option for junk mail. When they asked for a phone number, I provided my premium one I set up the other day, all emails go to my freshly created one on googlemail.com. Today I shall continue on this project little project, looking for UK competitions all over the place.

Stay tuned, If I win anything you lot will be one of the first to find out!.

Edit, look for the tag "project: competition" to see all posts related to this!.