Sep25
Win Fellows Hall - worth £600,000
A family not far from me in Ingleby Barwick, Stockton are giving people the chance to win their £600,000 house by entering into a raffle, with tickets selling for £25 each.
Click here to see the BBC Look North report.
Click here to buy your ticket.
BTW this isn’t the first time this has been done. A competition recently ended to win Oldborough Retreat. They sold 46,000 tickets at £25 a go, netting them £1.15m!
What I’m listening to right now: Eric Benet – “Don’t Let Go”
Topics: Competitions | 60 comments so far
Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 9:37 am and is filed under Competitions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I am the founder of ShareMyPlaylists.com, ContentNow.co.uk and some other businesses. I thought it would be fun to blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
Love the idea of this especially since it’s local but I didn’t like the ‘if we don’t sell £600000 worth of tickets we wont give you your money back’ clause.
That sounds great, but these competitions are not always legal. I can’t say this is not, but I remember a case in Spain (where I live) that a guy did the same, but he got owned by the treasury (tax office?)
Hmmm it would be nice to win but the house is awful! No privacy whatsoever. You can almost smell your nextdoor neighbours!
£25.00 an entry. £5 goes to charity (Good idea … fair enough), £2 over and above covers Paypal Cost (Paypal would only charge under 70p if they took more than £15K per month on a business account) and £5 covers admin costs (presumably not going into the prize pot if they do not meet the reserve)
Sounds like a nice little earner to me.
Go on put yours up for offer …..but can we afford it:)
Doug
what a rip off, now guess where the ball is… so not even a guarenteed entry for £25, complete rip off! its a 1 in million chance of even gettin the correct square right
I am so pleased that someone aswell as me and my wife has seen how rediculous this competition has turned into.
I bought a ticket last year thinking this was a fantastic idea!!!! new years came and went (by then draw was due to take place!) instead, someone has 75k from entries and now have decided to change the odds from 1 in 28,0000 to one in a million!!!!! the photo looks likes someones stuck one of the players on as hes looking in a completely different direction!!, theres no keeper or anyone in the croud so unless hes looking for spare change, then its anyones guess, be best trying to guess what hes looking at, I have asked for a refund and been given a very shirty response, anyone else in the same boat? I would love to hear from them before I ask the same questions through the northern echo.
Hi, I’ve just found this forum after sending a request by email for a refund for exactly the same reason, the competition I entered was a guaranteed place in the draw for £25, now I find I need to answer an almost impossible question correctly before I even have I chance. I can enter that sort of competition for free. When I first sent the email, on the day I received the “new competition rules”, it stated on their Contact Us page, that they “are having trouble with their emails”, what a surprise, so I was not surprised when I heard nothing. At least you got a reply……! I have just emailed them again, and threatened to take it further, we should all get together and go to the Northern Echo or something, I am furious. I realise £25 isn’t life and death, but I HATE being ripped off, and thats what I feel these COWBOYS have done. Thanks, Cathy.
This is an absolute con
I bought two tickets, and now I am getting no responses what so ever to my emails requesting a refund - am seriously considering contacting trading standards. I will post what happens when I do.
Does anyone have any further news on this?
I’ve mailed the contacts address a couple of times now, at least 4 times, and not had a response.
I just want to know if my original entry is still valid as a raffle and not a “Spot The Ball” and tiebreaker.
Like others have already said, I don’t want to be in a STB comp,
I entered a raffle!
I bought a ticket for fellows hall and asked for a fefund as soon as they changed the rules and heard nothing. I have just come in from work to find someone has sent me a cheqe for £25 no covering letter no indication who it is from ? could this be my refund i wonder lets see if it bounces will keep you posted
Hiya there I have just got your message, I asked for refund which I was promised months ago, still no show????
its not looking good at all for anyone! sadlly
Maybe you should all get your facts straight first before making slanderous and potentially libellous accusations on this website.
It is a shame you all hide behind forums to give you strength, instead of contacting us directly.
You mention going to the Northern Echo, please be our guest! They have actually been very supportive of what we were trying to do and even they could understand the problems we have faced along the way!
Despite a few technical problems, we have replied to EVERY email we have recieved and issued refunds for a significant amount of people.
So you might want to check your own email settings before casting dispersions.
As for accusations of us making significant sums of money from this draw, nothing could be further from the truth and by the time all the monies have been paid out accordingly, legal, bank fees, prize fund and charity donation, we will actually be OUT of pocket and still left with a house to sell.
As for the design of the house - well everyone is entitled to there opinion, we however do not share the comments on this website about the design and feel that the people making the comments would not be complaining too much if they had won the house! especially owning a £600k+ asset with no borrowing!
If you still have a problem with what we are doing then please contact us at contact@winfellowshall.com however as we have pointed out before we are not responsible for failed emails or corrospondence not reaching us.
Best of luck to those who have entered and are looking forward to see who wins either the house or the money prize if the reserve is not met!
a day later - closed…………………………………………………
No sign on the competition website who the winner was or how much they won.
The site states competition closed 1st June and winner notified within 10 days, so I’d have thought the winners details would be made public by now.
Seems very suspicious.
Anyone else still waiting for their promised refund?
I am also appalled with the whole ’spot the ball@ CRAP! and as for replying to all the e-mails, i have now sent 3 and STILL have no reply. I t is a big rip off and I am furious that I have spent £52 as i bought 2 tickets on something you have such little odds of winning. I am definatley taking this further I feel robbed!!!
For Simon Brown - What a load of rubbish! I emailed you numerous times and you did not respond even ONCE! How dare you spout off about decent people having a whinge at your outrageous ‘raffle’ that turned quickly into a farce!
You failed to do what you set out to do and now feel embarassed; and SO YOU SHOULD! You took the money from innocent people who just wanted a shot at the prize, you have categorically antagonized us at every turn and we as consumers have every legal right to express ourselves on public forums about our experiences.
Now go and crawl back under the rock that you crawled out of to (attempt to) defend yourself.
Oh and Simon - in your understandably flustered state of mind when stumbling upon this site, you made a typo.
One cast aspersions NOT dispersions, although I can see with the original competition you may have been having a go at the former.
Checked the Ch
Checked the site, and still no winner posted. I see the terms and conditions state a winner will be notified on or within seven days, so would have thought the details would be public by now.
From the questions and answers section of the website they state
. Who is the independant person/celebrity that will make the draw?
A. Details of who will make the draw will be announced on this website closer to the draw end date
I can’t see any sign of any details being posted on the site yet, and the draw should have been completed over a week ago!
Well the competition site now says.
“This competition is now CLOSED. The winner will be contacted 22nd June 2009″.
This is in clear breach of their terms and conditions which states Winner to be notified within 7 days of competition close.
The plot thickens!!
this is the big (another) day .They have mentioned that the draw will take place in presence of media as of now there is no sign of it !!!! .Is this legal?
Still no winner announced. And still no sign off the refund I was promised!
Well the Winner seems to be a closely guarded secret, as still not showingon their website!! Not sure what happened about the Celebrity supposedly doing the draw,either, but hey, they’ve broken most of the terms and conditions anyway, so a few more breaches won’t matter!!
Just to let you all know I got my refund cheque today, so they’re getting round to it.
It’s a shame this turned out how it did. Yes, a lot of us were sat waiting for refunds after the competition changed, but the comp change was down to the gaming commission. Yes, communication could have been better, if I’d have seen more updates on the website as to what was happening and how the comp change affected me I might have even stayed in it.
It’s a shame that no-one has walked away with the house but I hope that someone got a nice little pot of cash out of it.
Finally, I know most people on here won’t care but I wish those running the comp good luck for the future. This must have been very stressful for them, all I had at stake was £25, they had much more…..
I got my refund today as well. (Well, £25 anyway. I bet all those £2 “admin fees” added up to a pretty penny!)
I’d echo the sentiments of Mark`s post - it’s a shame it ended up this way. Basically, it was poor communication that has caused the bad feeling, creating the slight whiff of “scam”.
So who is the lucky winner? And how big was the prize pot.
Well it’s now the 25th June, and still there’s no publication of the Winner, the size of the prize, and the amount raised for charity. I’d say any stick the organisers have received, they’ve brought upon themselves by the lack of communication and transparency, along with continually breaching their own terms and conditions.
Winner is now named on their web site with a photo. Better late than never!
If you dig deeper the plot gets even more interesting. It turns out it’s Simon and his wife than run / are heavily involved in the charity which is taking a large share of the winnings. So they win either way in some shape or form. Have they actually broke any laws in all this?
If you Google themainproject s brown you’ll see he’s on the board of directors of the charity it’s all funding.
There’s no need to google Simon brown’s involvement in the charity. He declares that in the FAQ’s on the competition website.
As he is quite clearly heavily involved in the charity I’d be more surprised if he had NOT picked “the main project” as the charity to benefit from this.
Doing the maths on this, you can see from the winners photograph that £11,230 went to charity, which is 20% of the pot, Therefore they must have raised £56,150 which eqauates to 2,246 tickets. As the prize winning cheque was for £27,825, they retained £17,095 for their “Expenses”. I won’t comment further as the maths says it all!
Can I first say well done to the winner. I hope you enjoy spending your winnings.
I entered this raffle, but would never have entered a spot the ball competition. I was completely disgusted at the second change of rules, I tried the link they sent but it wouldn’t work, it wasn’t till weeks later I realised, two hours after the first one, they’d sent a working link. I’d missed it in lots of other emails I’d received.
At no time was I aware they were willing to give refunds and if I had been, I would have asked for one. It was only when I found the working email and went back to the website, did I realise they had been giving out refunds, but by then it was after the 15th. May deadline.
I think it was totally wrong of this couple not to offer all contestants their money back.
I knew they wouldn’t sell enough tickets to cover the cost of the supposed valuation, but was very surprised to see just how low ticket sales were.
Anyway, I suppose it doesn’t really matter how many were sold, as now there’s a tenant paying £1800 towards the mortgage.
The Smiths have behaved apallingly througout the whole debacle of the ‘competition’ and should be held to account!
Well, my refund cheque has bounced! I hope the winners have more luck with their cheque…
That’s outrageous. The whole debacle has been totally mismanaged from start to finish. If they run their business this way they won’t be around for long!!
All e-mails regarding the bounced cheque are being ignored (surprise!) - I wonder how many other people have been scammed?
I entered this competition thinking it was a wonderful idea, to begin with, buying 4 tickets at £100 and £8 admin costs. I sent numerous emails,asking for a refund as soon as the gambling commission suspended it and I did not receive a single reply from the owners. When I eventually received an email stating it had changed to a spot the ball competition, I thought I may as well have a shot as I was dubious to whether a refund would be received. Congratulations though to the winner and also to the charity, although I find it rather ironic being the mother of autistic twin girls, that this raffle turned out to be a complete shambles.
A letter to the local Trading Standards might focis their minds!
We entered the comp and bought four tickets. I dont know why, as i would never have lived in that ugly house. I would have tried, and failed to either sell, or rent it out.
As soon as the rules changed, we sent numerous emails asking for a refund. We entered a raffle, not spot the ball. Eventually, after several weeks we got a refund. The whole thing has been an utter joke. I feel sorry for those who have not received their money back.
Trading Standards and the Northern Echo will have to be my next stop, I think.
Those folks at some firm called “CalmAsylum” issued me the cheque that bounced, and have been studiously avoiding all contact ever since.
What a scam!
If you email this company letting them know your intentions to contact Trading Standards and The Northern Echo, perhaps they may be more inclined to answer your emails.
P.S I suppose its possible the organisers of the competion aren’t aware the cheque has bounced. So if you include the Evening Gazette, lots of people they know will see it and then they should’nt be any problems in them sorting it out promptly.
Well I finally managed to get a reply from “Calm Asylum”, the company who issued me the cheque that bounced. I was promised another cheque, but nearly two weeks later this is still yet to arrive - and all queries are being ignored again.
Looking more and more like a scam.
I don’t know who this “Cakm Asylum” are and what they have to do with the competition. Is this company where the money has ended up?
There are two companies registered with the name Calm Asylum.
A web designing company whose address is:
Calm Asylum Cummunications Ltd
The Chilli Rooms,
Brighouse Rd,
Middlesbrough,
Cleveland
TS2 1RT
Tel: 0845 0580511
And one in Consett which hasn’t registered it’s telephone number in yell.com
CALM ASYLUM LIMITED
PROSPECT HOUSE PROSPECT BUSINESS PARK
LEADGATE
CONSETT
DURHAM
DH8 7PW
Not sure if either of these are who you are looking for, But you could try contacting them to see if they have any connections to the competition.
Good Luck
Ah, that’s useful!
Perhaps I should just pop into Middlesbrough and ask for my money back in person!
I can’t believe they have the cheek to bounce cheques. I thought this whole debacle was well and truely over. . I was deleting emails and came across some about fellow hall. I only came back to this site to see if anybody else had felt the same way. I didn’t expect to see that some people are still having trouble. Good luck with getting your money back.
I have only just found out today what has happened……..I bought my ticket last year and had forgotten about it until today.. Thought I’d check the site and there is a woman with a cheque for 11K and another with another cheque - the footnote says no further refunds will be issued. Why have they assumed that we are all aware of what has happened. The website should have a concise explanation as to what has happened for those of us that haven’t been in touch. I suppose I have no chance of a refund….which is a shame because I would have put it to my charity MND…..don’t like my mloney going to a charity of their choice!!!
I agree with you about the website having little on it about what happened, it was like that right through the problems they were facing with no mention of what the relaunch of the competition meant to all of the original entrants.
With regards the charity they chose it stated in the T&C’s right from the outset that if there were insufficient entires for the house to be the prize then it would be a cash alternative with a percentage of that going to “The Main Project” as the charity they had chosen.
Did you ever get an entry to the “Spot the Ball” version of the contest? If not, surely you are owed a refund if you weren’t entered, as you original ticket wasn’t valid.
Good luck with that, mind - a month after my refund cheque bounced, I’m still waiting for my money. The organisers at “Calm Asylum” are ignoring me now that they have taken my money and run.
Surely the fees for bouncing cheques must be costing them more than the refunds would do?
Just found out about all of this after stumbling over thi website having had no correspondance at all about the competition and wondering what on earth was happening. After what I thought was a great idea, I now feel totally let down by lack of communication and consideration of people who entered in good faith. Im disappointed that the owners have seen fit to have a rant at those on this website who were willing to spend their money to help them out whilst most of us acknowledged the chance of winning may be small. A bit of humility costs nothing surely, especially when we’ve all spent so much!!
Sumbled across the site again, had no comunication at all since “the problems”. What a pratt hiding behind a charity, who`s made the money
Complete Scam | Real ugly house
Calm Asylum | Rubber Cheque’s
Simon Brown | Boro Cowboy
Just checked the site after forgetting about it since I did my STB entry… and now its full of adverts and spam searches! Not at all happy with the way things were handled with this competition, won’t be taken by another scam like this again… Anybody spoken to Look North? They were very keen to cover events when they were announced, heard nothing from them since… Maybe give them a shout and show how badly it all turned out
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just found this website after searching for fellows hall when website was found to be gone. I bought six tickets and asked for a refunbd immediately after being informed of the change to a STB comp but never received a reply. Guess the money has gone for good but surely a refunbd should of been offered to everyone after the comp changed. Feeling very ripped off, anyone got any further info?
Who won what then and where did my money go?!
Still no refund, no reply to my email, no sorry for what happened! I cant beleive that this couple have go away with this! isnt this fraud?? How can rules of a comp change after sales have began?? I mean it cost them nothing to set up a website, issue an invisable ticket and then not reply to peoples emails-discusting!