New winner for Tocco giveaway
April 27th, 2009
Hi. It's time for us to hold up our hands and say we got it so wrong with the Orange Tocco comp! Really, really sorry - there was a genuine error on our part and we wanted to put it right.
So the good news is that we have managed to get another Tocco and today we selected another winner with random.org. The winning limerick was posted on 29th March and goes as follows!
There once was a man with a fringe
Who, when he touched fruit, got a twinge
With Apple, he'd die
With BlackBerry, he'd cry
But he's thrilled with his Tocco from Orange!
We are sure you'll all agree it's a good one and apologies again for getting it wrong first time round.
Julie
** Users interceptor and janemaylu have won this competition**
We hope you enjoy the Tocco's!
So the good news is that we have managed to get another Tocco and today we selected another winner with random.org. The winning limerick was posted on 29th March and goes as follows!
There once was a man with a fringe
Who, when he touched fruit, got a twinge
With Apple, he'd die
With BlackBerry, he'd cry
But he's thrilled with his Tocco from Orange!
We are sure you'll all agree it's a good one and apologies again for getting it wrong first time round.
Julie
** Users interceptor and janemaylu have won this competition**
We hope you enjoy the Tocco's!
Where did you reveal the last winner? I always find it annoying that you guys don't seem to announce winners but maybe you do and I just don't realise where?
Anyhoo, congrats to the original winner and the new one...it is good of you to correct whatever error it was you made
Hey swaymyway - We announce in the blog comments and edit the original post. We have also started doing a monthly roundup of winners
Hi
Still bit confused as you offered two phones to start with so really there should be three winners. Or was that a mistake.
"We've also got two Samsung Toccos to giveaway to Quidco members courtesy of Orange. Getting a chance to win one of these is easy as ever but we've thrown a little twist in for you creative Quidco'ers "
So can you please state who the winners are please??
thanks
so what word inthatr rhymed with orange then? as stated in competition but i agree it is a good one.
Good winner, very hard of you gother I'd buy that as a rhyme better than blamange anyway
...
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I had to be really dicey with orange to get it to rhyme!
Quidco... What is the second winning limerick then?
The competition was for two original Toccos and another listed above.
One Tocco was won by an illegible post
One Tocco was won as the blog above
What's happened to the third? Almost a month and still not resolved - It's a bit of a poor show from Quidco...
Fringe and twinge are half-rhymes with Orange. I don't think the rules said it had to be a full rhyme
Congrats to the new winner, although one still wonders on the whereabouts of the mystery extra phone!
Thanks to quidco for sorting this out and actually putting their hands up to mix up. I just hope they take what happened on board and close competitions when they end so people cant enter after it closes, or better still if people actually read the comp details before they enter as that would stop the mix up.
Hey,
Sorry for the confusion regarding this competition, the two winners of this originalcompetition can be found on the comments of the original blog. One of the winners was a late entry so to make up for this we pulled out another winner which is why we posted this extra blog to announce the latest winner!
Quidco, this is dreadful. 2 original winners, both posted outside the dates. You have only owned upto one mistake.
The current football tickets, you have extended the deadline after the competition started, this isnt fair for those who posted on time.
A Christmas competition 2008 that was full of flaws, and dont even talk about the 2007 Christmas competition.
A saying is coming to mind, piss up and brewery
Where I have worked before, if someone couldnt do their job then they wouldnt have a job. Whoever is running these competitions needs ousting. Quidco seem to just be growing quicker than they can cope with, and we know what happens to those. Maybe we should all just leave and go else where and then you will learn to play by the rules!!!!
You are just annoying people to often, have no customer service now, ignore poss, ignore competitions without posting winners. Have you forgotten your company only exists as long as we use it for cashback. You were once a pioner but now trail behind others that have taken your model and made it better. I have seen better customer service with our water company!!!!
I'm not sure which competitions have been run according to the rules set out by Quidco, - the people that won the Gold Cup tickets didn't put a reason for their horse choice like hundred's of other users did but still won.
It is getting beyond a joke, in my opinion, the trouble is the 'random.org' you use to pick the winners, the important word being 'random', you can't lay down rules and then use a random picker for the winner/s!!
There is nothing wrong with random.org as long as the person using it actually checks the result before posting. Simple if the chosen result doesnt have the correct posting or date then pick another before telling the world. Its like going to the bank and handing over a random amount of money and saying it should be ok and they accept it without checking.
lb364, they just pick an eligible comment from it, so that means they pick all the eligible comments and one RANDOM comment is picked out to be the winner... except they just included illegible ones too. The competition wasn't based on the quality of the limerick this time!
sprocket1066, mistakes have definitely been made with the competitions but lets hope they're regarded as experiences to be improved upon. They are after all secondary to the cashback element which doesn't seem to have many complaints...
"better customer service with our water company" - come on, we know that's not true
Is that the competition that was due to end on 12th March midnight and the winner (one winner) was announced few days before? what happened to that competition and winners?
Hi, it really is a bad week here at Quidco as we have gone and upset our members all over again!
First of all, let us say that the errors in the Tocco competition were genuine and we can assure you all that there was no intention to mislead, upset or indeed, as one of your comments states, defraud anyone. You know that its not Quidcos way to do these things.
However, we have definitely messed up big-time on this occasion and we are the first to admit that we are not happy with the situation.
Heres what we are doing about it:--
1. Today we will draw another winner using random.org (we will then take care to ensure that the entry picked out at random meets the criteria. If it does not, another entry will be drawn until we get one that does). That will ensure that 4 phones will have been won, the second two for eligible entries.
2. From now on the running of competitions is under new management and we will do our utmost to ensure that we are more diligent in the future by putting firm processes into place around rules of entry, drawing of winners and announcement of winners.
We will be making all of these available to you shortly.
So, again, and hopefully for the last time, we apologise to you all about the way some competitions have gone recently.
Hey at least Quidco are holding up their hands and saying "yeah we made a boob, sorry, here is what we are doing to solve it" better than 99% of other companies out there. I can understand 1 or 2 pwoplw getting upset, but I think a few over reactions have been posted above!
Oh and that should say people! Bloomin fat fingers!
Like I said before people need to start READING comps before they post. Yeah quidco messed up here but theyve held their hands up......lets all move on.
lol
Bring on the next comp.........
I don't know where to start.
"It's time for us to hold up our hands and say we got it so wrong"
"we are the first to admit that we are not happy with the situation"
Really? Is Doctor Who on your staff? You seem to exist in a different time frame to the rest of us.
The time to admit you were wrong was weeks ago when the first questions were asked. Many of us admitted we were unhappy with the situation and the questions and comments on the blog can bear that out.
From where I sit you seemed to only pipe up with apologies when the sheer weight of criticism forced you to do something, until then it really seems you where going to ignore the problem.
Far from being unique and customer focussed, you have come across as bad and false as the faceless companies we all have to deal with in other areas. Only offering something after you believe you may lose custom over it.
To then make the second winner inelligable as well is so dumb it would even be rejected by the worst sitcom scriptwriter as being too far fetched.
Honestly - when you are in a hole, you better make sure your solution is not to keep digging.
"we are the first to admit that we are not happy with the situation"
Well, not quite. It's taken a month to rectify the situation fully.
"2 original winners, both posted outside the dates"
Pure comedy gold.
Onwards and upwards though... I'l continue to use Quidco for cashback but I think I'll give the competitions a miss in the future.
Thank you Quidco for your response. Congratulations to all the winners
its really great of quidco to agree on mistakes they make. i am not pretty sure why people get so verbal & used words like pi**ed off. quidco is just trying to help everyone & give things for free. as per me, they are doing a great job. some people can never be happy
ditto aarjaygee
congratulations to all the winners. For those whose won fair and square and those who didn't. Quidco, you messed up on this one big time.
Quidco
Please just remember we are not stupid (well not all of us) so we like to be kept informed and know you are reading our blogs.
Im glad we have got an outcome and some genuine entree will will a prize.
Maybe future competitions should not only state an end date, but also an winner annoucement date. Also we know how quidco works, so if you havent the prize to hand yet then let us know, or if the prize is being given by the company for meeting a target, hence the giveaway to promote them, then please let us know. It will help us and therefor help you.
Some competitions seem to take months before an announcement, please just keep us informed why.
The biggest mistake of all is that it is impossible to do a limerick using Orange as a rhyme.
There are no words in the English language to rhyme with orange.
The Limerick has a strict form of AABBA where lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyme and lines 3 and 4 rhyme.
None of these entries meet this most important of criteria for a limerick.
Therefore the prize should be given to someone who pointed this out in the original blog eg me rather to a poem that is clearly not a proper limerick.
I presumed the organiser set this competition task as a delivberate trap for the unweary.
Well said sprocket1066, what we want is openness and honesty. What quidco needs to do is not ignore us when we have a problem, infomation is vital. If we are advised we dont get pi$$ed off and angry. I believe quidco wait until they have a solution to update us but they simply need to post there has been a mistake and keep us updated of how if any a resolution can be found. We would then not have to make negative posts and we would develop a greater respect for Quidco. I appreciate they have difficulties at times collecting in the cash-back we have earned, but in my experience (so far...) they have always eventually sorted it out. Overall I've got to say I am 99.9% satisfied with how quidco operates and helps, but unfortunately incidents like this one end up sticking in the mind and affecting the opinion of the good customer service quidco really do provide.
I also want to support the post by sprocket1066 and also believe this situation could have easily been averted by an early admission and apology when the mistake was first pointed out.
Instead things were allowed to get out of hand, where fair minded people who wanted answers were attacked as being "sore losers" and the such. It was only at this point I made my first post as it appeared this useful criticism was being perverted into being seen as an attack on Quidco as a whole or for personal gain.
Matters got worse when a winner announced him/herself before any Quidco announcement and it became apparent that their entry was invalid. Instead of posting an apology or announcing an enquiry, Quidco allowed this individual to feel they were under pressure to apologise for winning.
Thankfully not one post attacked the winner personally, instead most of us "sore losers" went out of our way to congratulate them and made it clear we put the need for apologies and explainations at Quidco's door - Yet still there was not official word.
Quidco did in this time, set up new competitions and answer posts in other blogs, but (un)suprisingly nothing was offered in this blog.
No-one likes being ignored or being treated as if they were stupid, but this is how alot of us felt and finally when an enquiry and solution was offered, this too was handled poorly despite the obvious need to cover all the issues raised.
Having people having to point them after their original enquiry and apology that the second winner was obviously also invalid should never remotely have happened if this issue was taken with any seriousness.
I don't think Quidco is "really great" because they have been forced to apologise for a embarrasing mistake they themselves created and allowed to fester.
If this is what is meant by Quidco "loving" their complete stranger membership as the front page boasts then I would prefer them not to 'love' me but try and respect me instead.
Like my 'good friends' at 'Honest Bob's Used Car Sales', Quidco is a business, not a charity or a social club. Some of us would prefer that relationship and would ask people to understand that the cashback is what got us here in the first place. I do not feel that I should be required to accept the usefulness of this service to excuse the mistakes made in other areas.
I would rather Quidco not run competitions if this is how they allow them to play out. Sadly this has flavoured my view of them and likely will make me examine alternative sites.
Shame really.
quidco ... can I just say that I still love you
the competitions are a bonus to the main aim of the site, and tbh we're all human and mistakes can, and do happen
I'm glad you've identified the problem, rectified it, and then put a process in place to minimise the chances of it happening again ... all part of the continuous improvement process
Thanks!
Fantastic post by jimmy992 that really sums it up.
It's not the fact that mistakes have been made which I see as the main problem, it's the issue of being ignored in the hope that people will just forget and move on to another competition.
Personally, I raised a ticket questioning the competition on the 18th, Quidco finally responded on the 25th with a 'stock' answer also sent to others - not good customer service imho.
jimmy992 and sprocket1066 are bang on the money in my opinion. This was a complete and utter farce and without any intervention I highly doubt Quidco would have bothered to rectify the situation at all.
I've been getting the impression recently that as Quidco have become bigger and larger their customer service is severely being reduced and they're turning into yet another faceless organisation. Very disappointing.
Seriously, concentrate on sticking to your core business and leave competitions alone. Though I guess the amount of revenue you receive through click-throughs far outweighs any repercussions?
What would have made it better?
Admission of the error(s) more quickly and the initial rectification of the error should have been correct.
What would have made it worse?
If the error(s) had not been acknowledged; if the error(s) hadn't be rectified at all; if the organisation of competitions had not been altered.
My view?
This could have been handled better, BUT mistakes happen. I'll still be using Quidco.
Hi,
I will now be running the competitions and the picking of winners so I will take all of your comments on board.
As soon as we heard about the problem with the initial winner we did put a plan into place to rectify this and although it may have taken a week to post we were getting this ready to ensure that a proper winner was awarded. We understand the frustration that this may have caused but from now on we will be working to hard to ensure that winners are selected correctly and they will be posted soon after a competition finishes.
This was a genuine error on our part and it would not have not gone unnoticed, we have now awarded four winners and we hope that in the future we can provide a better experience with the competitions.
We will be announcing a second valid winner later today!
Thanks
Stephen
Woodie - look on Youtube for "orange" and "QI" and see what shows up. There was at least one entry which abided by your requirements.
To the people who are still up in arms, chill out a little! Quidco made a mistake, they've apologised, rectified it and you're still whinging. It's not like you've had to pay for the extra Toccos.
Peps2004 - I think you have this backwards.
"
Quidco didn't apologise and then us 'whinge' - We had no choice but to 'whinge' before Quidco decided to apologise.
Stephen's post though welcome in part, only makes acceptable sense if the date that quidco "heard about the problem" was the 25th April 2009, as this was the first time Quidco even aknowedged the issue and promised an update.
Otherwise we have to genuinely believe that it was decided or actually impossible to take a second or two to write, "We have noticed a problem with the competition, we are sorry and will comment further when we have more information and a solution." If this were done most would accepted and not have to face petty put downs and snide comments from other members.
I really wish any company would be different and just state -
"We have now looked at this and O.K..... It was a total balls up.
We won't insult anyone by pretending that we had a plan, we just made a mistake and were a little to embarrased to admit it straight away.
This won't happen again we promise as the naughty person in charge has promised to pay attention instead being sidetracked by googling his own name...
We are going to offer 2 new phones to make up for it and we thank all those who took the time to bring this to our attention. We appreciate all feedback, good or bad and always use it to help create a better experience for all our members.
We hope that all our members respect the different views of each other and that we can put this incident behind us.
With humble apolgies....Jimmy XXX
If a company could have the guts to do something like that, then it really would be different.
What about competitions like the Teleflorest. No winner announced, not even a post by a winner which would usually happen by atleast one winner. We have to assume no winners. Why has this gone quiet. Its not just this giveaway.
What about the giveaway people mention (cant remember which one) where a winner was announced before the end date?
I bet some of the people posting on here are the type who demand stewards enquiries at school sports days. Whatever happened to the fun spirit of competitions? OK, Quidco messed up. You didn't win. You must have known that the odds were against you winning anyway, so didn't you have at least a bit of fun coming up with a limerick? Competitions don't seem to be about the fun of entering anymore, they just seem to be driven by the greed to win something that usually goes straight on ebay anyway.
I bet some of the people posting on here are the type who demand stewards enquiries at school sports days. Whatever happened to the fun spirit of competitions? OK, Quidco messed up. You didn't win. You must have known that the odds were against you winning anyway, so didn't you have at least a bit of fun coming up with a limerick? Competitions don't seem to be about the fun of entering anymore, they just seem to be driven by the greed to win something that usually goes straight on ebay anyway.
We have now drawn a second winner for the Tocco competition and it is user janemaylu with
There once was a girl called Jane
Who decided phones were a pain
So she went to Orange
Along with a lozenge
And never had trouble again!
Thanks
Heaven wept!!!
Again we have some clever cloggs dragging up the "sore loser" angle, proving my point entirely and the entire reason why I felt the need to support the fair criticisms on the original thread.
Speaking for myself, I knew I wouldn't win and I state for the record in the very unlikely event my entry is picked by random.org for the final phone re-pick, I will tell Quidco now to pick another winner.
I shouldn't have to do that but it appears that some people just cannot be convinced that this is a matter of principal not for gain. If you had taken any time to read my and others earlier posts you would already know that.
It is the pig-ignorant type of tripe put in posts like the one above that has got people on the defensive, when Quidco could have stamped it out early on instead of taking open responsibility and admitting that their actions were either directly influenced or at least aided by the FAIR criticisms many of us put forward.
By portraying themselves as being always aware of the problem and having a solution plan in place for some time has just given the petty attackers the belief we are stiring up uneeded trouble, while all the circumstantial evidence points towards the opposite.
It takes all types to make a world, we are as frustrated as you about that, believe me.
NOTE - The announcement was made while I was typing, my offer was genuine and i'm not suprised I didn't win as much most of the other critics won't be.
got more chance winning the lottery lol but not one rymed with orange though as some posts said it is a hard word to ryme with so fair play to the winners cause they are good rhymes.
good job quido, congrats to the winners
maybe everyone should learn to forgive and forget. quidco made a mistake, they admitted it, and offered 2 extra phones as peace offerings. what more? public apology on the newspaper? chill, guys. at least they're giving stuff away, would you rather they stop having competitions only would you be happy?
btw, there are words that rhymed with orange, aren't there? i used change and strange in mine (:
Thanks Quidco, good work on the issuing of new prizes and keep up the good work on the quality cashback site.
Jimmy I think you summed it up nicely in your April 28th, 2009 10:06 pm post. I do think though we are now entering the realms of tautology so this now really needs a line drawing under it.
Niceguyed - You are absolutely right.
This issue has polarised peoples viewpoint and I was hoping for a more advanced level of discussion.
I really wanted to provide Quidco with some useful feedback and to make them truely understand why people were frustrated. I believe this would be at least as valuable as any points that maybe raised at any feedback sessions most can't attend.
I agree that what ever was to be learned or admitted is now fixed and no further disscussions will change that.
I will leave by saying that I believe that Quidco should read the final paragraph of their "Etiquette" and ask themselves if they really did do enough in this instance to cultivate beneficial relationships between their members? Were they always acting with "integrity, honesty, and transparency"?
I didn't want any fight but neither will I sit by and allow honest, useful criticism belittled. I believe without people such as Brim, Maxtweenie, sprocket1066 and others that 2 other members not be enjoying their fairly won and deserved prizes.
I won't post again unless asked or I am commented upon.
God, what a bunch of losers up there ^
Can I suggest that each and every one of you leaves Quidco and doesn't come back.
This sites gives free money, what more do you want?
Idiots.
Thanks for taking time away from the MENSA meeting to give your useful comments Budfox.
You made a couple of points and asked a question so her goes -
"God, what a bunch of losers up there ^"
- Naturally God or any supreme being knows that every post was from someone who didn't win the competition, but we appreciate a wise man pointing this out.
"Can I suggest that each and every one of you leaves Quidco and doesn't come back."
- Including Quidco who posted? Don't see how that would work. You must be setting an intellectual puzzle beyond my mere understanding. I will say that after my outstanding payments are complete, I will ask Quidco to close my account.
"This sites gives free money"
- Is this a test? obviously you would know there is no such thing as 'free money', Quidco merely shares referral money that in the old days would have gone to comparrison or advertising sites etc. The idea of 'free money' has been a major contributor to the economic mess the world finds itself in.
"what more do you want?"
For people to take responsibility for their actions. Also not to patronise me, unfairly abuse or call me an idiot.
"Idiots."
Oh......
budfox,
Fantastic, witty and eloquently put post.
I have no comeback against your obvious intelligence...
I will add though, that I think the above poster got it absolutely correct when he stated that without the continued criticism of Quidco's inaction '2 other members would not be enjoying their fairly won and deserved prizes.'
My main objection with this was the fact Quidco knew about the error before sending out the phones to ineligible winners, one winner was told by Laura from Quidco that the losers would soon stop moaning, so disappointing when I had previously been impressed with Quidco's ethos. Information taken from here, thanks to google http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=20836281&highlight=#post20836281
thanks for the link hillcolin, I am rather disappointed with what i read. I for one wasnt moaning, I just like rules to be stuck to so sorry if you feel like I and others were moaning !
just to add, my comment was for quidco Laura.
Quidco - Keep up the good work guys and girls!
To all the complainers... PLEASE get a life. There are more important things to worry about than a comp that went slightly awry. For god sake, you are getting SOMETHING for NOTHING and still wanna moan about it. I bet you're the kind of people who post complaint letter for issues that actually cost less than the stamp!!
P.S. I bet the Quidco staff are really bricking it worrying about 3 of you deciding you don't want to use the site again!! ... Not!
i've been a bit critical of quidco at times but the end of the day everyone and every company makes mistakes its human so let by gones be by gones
londonthing, so people are only allowed to comment if they make nice comments and do not criticise in any way, shape or form ?
Course we all make mistakes and we learn from them so why should quidco be any different.
I will bow out now as I feel there is nothing else to add.
Londonthing, Budfox,
Apologies to both of you, I didn't realise that this was a site where everybody had to tow the line.
I do think your both missing the point though. My issue was with the non-action of Quidco, failure to respond to tickets raised and the fact that it took over a month to finally get it right.
I really do believe that Laura from Quidco's statement (see hillcolin's post) proves that they just expected this to go away without having to rectify the situation.
The fact is that 2 genuine winners won the competition yesterday, solely because of the pressure put on Quidco by posters like myself and others.
This thing leaves a sour taste in the mouth and while I'm sure Quidco don't currently care whether a small amount of members leave to go elsewhere due to this debacle, I hope they improve their customer service or they'll find a few turns into many.
Interesting insight there provided by hillcolin in that link to MSE. Not exactly professional is it?
It was me that started the original complaint because I felt that Quidco had got it very wrong with this competition. I just wanted them to see that what had happened was very unprofessional, and then put steps in place to make sure that things were done properly next time. They eventually acknowledged the mistakes, after a lot of promtping and inaccuracies in thier responses, and they have also said that they will endeavour to get it right in future. If that happens, that's all I wanted to see.
As for Budfox's comments, it just shows that Quidco is the type of place where even people of obviously below average intelligence such as yourself are welcomed. Your comments were unhelpful and simply designed to inflame the situation. Grow up.
Having just read the post from MSE, I must say I'm very disappointed with Laura from Quidco's response. It was very unprofessional of her to dismiss the vast number of genuine entries so casually, and I would be very loathe to employ someone who has that kind of attitude. It may have 'only been a competition', but if that kind of attitude were to appear when chasing up cashback, I'm sure that there would be a lot of people who would look elsewhere for cashback.