I thought this might be of some interest to photographers who have entered or thought of entering any Guardian photo competition.
It appears the Guardian is having problems in making good on its competition prizes and several weeks ago was forced to publish a letter in its consumer advice section where a competition winer wrote to ask whether he should sue for non-payment of his prize. See here.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/may/03/8The Guardian is also running a photography competition called "Urban Mural" (guardian.waidev8.com/urban_mural/site/)
I entered this competition and won the second round of it in early January. Surprisingly I received no official notification from the Guardian. After several weeks I wrote to the Guardian who apologised that they had not been in touch and promised that the prize, an Olympus Mju 800, would be sent to me shortly. However, after many emails and several months of waiting I have received nothing. They wrote a couple of weeks ago to explain that the model was out of stock and they were goping to send me the latest model (last week). Predictably it has still not turned up.
While I have a personal axe to grind there is a further issue in relation to the competition. The Guardian appears to have realised it made a balls-up of running the competition so re-launched it. In doing so it has extended the closing date of the competition (as it officially closed on 4 April). No real problem there but importantly it has also unilaterally changed the terms and conditions of the competition, changing the number of prizes available, the basis on which winners are selected and other terms and conditions (including warranties to be confirmed by entrants). Sneakily they have tied in acceptance of the prize to acceptance of the (new) terms and conditions. What is even more frustrating is that it was not possible to print and/or cut and paste the previous terms and conditions, and the same is true of the current ones. This means it is impossible to compare the new and the old. Furthermore, if someone had entered an earlier round they might reasonably assume that the terms and conditions would have remained the same for later rounds, which is not the case and there is nothing to alert people to the change in terms and conditions.
There has been a lot of discussion on websites about whether competition terms and conditions are reasonable - normally revolving around ownership of copyright. For the record, the Guardian terms and conditions were fairly reasonable (bearing in mind it's a free to enter competition), and the new ones aren't that bad either - it's changing them halfway through that I think is fairly deplorable.
I'm fully aware of my rights so am not concerned about eventually getting the prize but I think it's fair to name and shame the Guardian for their behaviour on this competition. Out of interest did anyone else on here enter the competition?
For light relief, here's my photo. I realise the prize is a dreaded digital but I'd like to point out that the shot was taken with my trusty Olympus OM-10....
[Sorry, image deleted during forum software upgrade. Please re-upload if so inclined.]
