I am in complete and utter disbelief. I have been contacted by the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation in relation to how I run giveaways on my blog because one of our readers thought it would be a good idea to report Mad Mummas. Reported us for what? Well I’m not sure exactly because they (VCGLR) couldn’t find an issue with how I run any of the competitions on my blog. They are ALL skilled based and the terms and conditions couldn’t be more straight forward than they already are; which the lovely inspector and compliance officer confirmed for me.
My first instinct was to be pissed off but after I stewed on it for a few days my anger turned to disappointment. Is it really that important for someone to win something? To get something for free? It confuses me in all honesty. Could someone be that disgruntle about not being chosen as a winner that they would resort to the drastic measure of trying to get others in legal trouble? As I’m sure you could imagine many hours go into putting these giveaways together; writing the post, monitoring comments, reading entries, deciding on a winners, announcing winners, sending details to PR, etc. I do all this as a way to reward readers and fans, encourage new ones and share a bit of joy amongst the blog/web community. I have run so many competitions (possibly 100’s) over the years we have been running and have been emailed by some extremely happy winners that couldn’t contain their excitement; these fans make it worth it. What this person has done could have had the potential to end that; thankfully I conduct all giveaways legitimately so we are still able to spread the love.
If you feel the giveaways run here are anything but fair than please don’t enter as all you are doing is wasting mine/my husband/family members time. We read and judge each of the entries and it is a very time consuming job. Most of you are absolutely wonderful and I want nothing more than for you to keep coming back, entering, sharing and having the chance to win something awesome that you may otherwise not have gotten.
**I really hope the woman who made the complaint gets to read this because just in case you missed it above – I have done absolutely nothing wrong and the VCGLR has cleared me of all/any of your complaints. I also want you to know that I know who are (yes I know your name) and most importantly negative and hostile behaviour is not a required or desired character to have in skill based competitions or the Mad Mummas community in general.
If you have won something from Mad Mummas – big or small – I would love for you to leave me a comment below with what you have won and did it bring you joy?