Forum Thread

Whats promoted me to suggest this is the large number of raffles and lotteries recently that have prizes listed but are these are never given out, or the exact same prize is offered in 5 or 6 of the same users lotteries over a period of weeks - but is still never handed out as a prize.

I can't help but think offering a prize you will never be handing out is heavily misleading to users donating their goods and falls under the scamming users into thinking they might get something they never will.

Some random examples:

"Donate and Win a DITTO or LEGENDARY BIRD or a summon item!" - prize turns into an enigma stone

"Do this and win DITTO or NUGGETS or PD!" - Prize turns into 100K PD

"Donate this and win a MEGASTONE or a RARE SHINY SLOT or shiny plushies" - the prize turns into shiny plushie

I'd like to propose a simple change to have a rule stating lotto/raffle prizes must be clear - and actually handed out if they are listed in the post/thread as a prize.

I think this will serve well to protect users from getting scammed with these sort of "fake" prize lists.

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Bump and Support! Currently the users are mostly advised to be careful, and it really isn't the donating person's fault. As I have seen here, the scammed user cannot have their goods back, which is unfair.
In the current scenario, the user scammed is the ultimate Victim. Even if the scammer is banned, the user's donations/entries get blocked.

Also, some raffles go inactive in due time, and never give out their prices. This attitude should also be punished.

Wait, I'm confused. The scenarios you've listed are clearly scams? Just report it or tell me since user-made contests is a part of my section of the forums. There's no need for that rule because what you've stated is already against the rules.

Withholding the prizes, changing the prizes midway (without offering to give back the original lottery entries) and placing items as prizes in several different contests are all considered scams and would be dealt with appropriately.

Edit: I'd just like to be clear here that I'm not saying prizes don't have to be listed clearly - of course they do. I will always comment and ask them to elaborate if the prizes aren't clear but we shouldn't need a rule for that and if we do, it's kind of already in this. I just don't see the need to change anything because what you're using as examples are simply examples of misbehavior which would already have consequences.

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When the same ditto was offered up as a prize for the 5th different competition and then sold 3 days later for nuggets and never given out as a prize for any of them I thought for sure it was a scam - but when I went through the site rules and the lottery thread rules I couldn't see anything to actually report them for.

There seemed to be no rules against putting "this OR that OR the other" in the prize list as long as they gave at least one of the listed ones out. They didn't exactly lie to anyone, they just baited people in with the ditto prize but then gave out the lowest value prize on their list.

I'll definitely mention it to mod next time I see it, once one user started doing it I saw at least 2 others doing the same thing - numbers 1 and 2 are actually real examples I witnessed.

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Mmm... I'd consider the situation you described to be a scam. I'll definitely be checking contests a bit more closely then. But, I do appreciate help since I am a high school student studying for her uni entrance exams so if anyone does see something they believe is a scam, please do tell me about it or report it.

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If they are saying this or that they technically aren't scamming you. They don't promise you the Ditto. That is not a scam. A scam is a fraud. The simple solution would be to not join these raffles or lottos. Correct me if I am wrong but you can't be banned for being a jerk. Unless they lie and don't hand out either of the "or" prizes they didn't scam you as it was never promised to you.

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What I'm saying is that they can't do that. A scam can also be defined as 'a dishonest scheme'. Which it is because even though they mentioned the ditto, they never meant to give it out.

I don't know the details of this raffle since from what I can tell it's already over and I never saw it. But, if I do see one like this, I would most definitely ask them to define the prizes without the word 'or' (unless the word 'or' is used for a choice by the winner).

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