Telegraph Competitions Caught out by Reddit?

We have all heard in the past, of television competitions being rigged and subsequently crucified by OFCOM (Blue Peter and Channel 5 will remember), but the world has entered a new stage where if an organisation decides to illegally rig a competition, it has to do it pretty well – without leaving footprints.

In the marketing world, we all know that competitions are used as a means of publicising a brand, creating consumer awareness and in SEO, creating links. But if you happen to be in the mind set of fixing competitions, you now have to be aware that it is very easy to get caught out.

And it is something that is taken very seriously indeed.

So what are the accusations?

Over the last month The Telegraph has been launching daily ‘Men Expert’ competitions to promote its new ‘Men’ section, giving away iPads, games consoles and other popular goods.

A list of the winners can be found here and thanks to a Reddit user named, ‘telegraphpolygraph’, they were able to work out, merely from Twitter names, that two of the winners were, as he claims in some sense or another, associated to the paper.

Day one winner was no other than internet blogger, Sarah Duggers, who managed to snap up some Ben Sherman clothes alongside an iPad mini and one year’s free digital subscription to the Telegraph.

Telegraphpolygraph claims that Duggers happens to be a ‘longtime Twitter pal’ of James Manning, the social media content editor of the Telegraph.

Though Duggers does not work for The Telegraph, was she randomly plucked from the sea, amongst a shoal of anonymous fish? Or had three months of interaction finally paid off?

This of course, is a mild example and is a little lacklustre in evidence (something that is crucial in the eyes of the law in most democratic countries), so one may conclude that this could have been Mr. Manning’s way of paying off Duggers’ loyalty to the paper in which she kindly follows. If he had noticed at all.

So, what of day two?

This one is a little more interesting and involves a Mr. Rupert Myers, who managed to bag himself a School of Life Class, six books on how to live everyday life, one iPad mini and some gin.

According to Myers’ Twitter page, he is a barrister, writer and presenter. This of course, all seems fairly fair, that is until telegraphpolygraph suggests that not only is he another Twitter pal of the aforementioned social media content editor, but he is also a regular contributor to the paper.

Thus alleging that competition rules had been broken by The Telegraph.

So, what will happen to the Telegraph if it is found to have rigged competitions?

Aside from the fact that it probably will be a little apprehensive about publishing material on other organisations rigging competitions, they could face penalties, though there would need to be great proof in this case, if anything were to be pushed forward.

According to the paper’s competition rules:

“1. This daily competition is open to residents of the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland aged 18 years over, except for employees of Telegraph Media Group Limited, their agents or anyone else professionally associated with the competition.”

If The Telegraph wants to avoid accusations in the future, a simple background check may prove effective for finding someone with no association to the newspaper. After all, Myers may well fall into what the organisation considers an ‘agent’ of the group.

It is worth noting however, that though accusations are fun for some, even in 2013, accidents and coincidences do happen.

The Telegraph, as of yet, has declined to comment.