Some advice needed urgently.

[Haggisuk99]

Sup all, I apologise for the long post from the start but I'm stumped and Im looking for some advice on how to deal with this and if I have any futher recourse.

I recently signed up to the consoles giveaway offer, being a computer repair person I meet a lot of people and also being involved in some gaming scenes there are some of my friends that I can ask to sign up so getting refferals for a ps3 for my boy didnt seem too bad. I choose giveaway purely because it needed less refferals than the others that I came across and I had figured that I could stretch the 10 refferals needed, so everything went fine and I started getting in the refferals and they signed up to lovefilm and things looked great.

We have a lodger that lives with us and technically her part of the house is designated 10a we live at 10 however we share the same door, so when i came home one night and my wife says that her and my lodger had completed an offer for us and it had gone green as well, I was over the moon. With 7 pendings and one green it wouldnt be long maybe in time for my boys birthday.
In my travels I found this site and started reading the storys, I became aware of the signing from the same address rule and got worried that it may affect us and look like the same address, so I submitted a trouble ticket and have waited now over a week for a reply.
I have finally had a reply and it simply stated a page where i can see the t&c's and theyve told me my account is now invalid which means Ive probably lost all my refferals as well.
To be frank I am devastated by it and feeling slightly ripped off. Where my wife has had good intent it has cost us dearly for something that she knew nothing of with regards to t&c and frankly when i read them I had assumed that it meant I couldnt sign up twice or other members of my family, not anything else. I will struggle badly now to get another lot of refferals, how do you convince your friends that the offers genuine and then go back and tell them that they took your account because of a misunderstanding or ????? so can they do another offer for me with another network and it definately wont be in time for Xmas. All those people I took hours to convince that it was a genuine offer I cant lie to them what the hell am I supposed to say to them over this because I sure as hell dont feel like it is right what they have done and am feeling slightly ripped off about it ...............:
My questions are,

What happens in the case of someone who lives in a bedsit etc techically they share the same address like my lodger does but they are classed as a different family styled households and the house is split into room numbers or have ohter designations, do they class this as a different address or the same one?, does this mean that if one signs up then if the rest do a while later cause they think its a good idea then the accounts invalid automatically?
Seriously on the one hand we are asked to advertise the link then penalised for it on the other?

Is it over with regards to this account now, have i lost everything or is there a way to appeal the decision?

The rules say in the terms and cons
There may not be more than one account per household per Giveaway web site. A household includes your mailing address
Can anyone explain why to me please?

My lodger is not part of my family household, technically she lives at 10a we live at 10. We do share the same front door. (So do blocks of flats) Is this right that they can do this or is this just a tecnicality that is being used to wriggle out of supplying me with a playstation now that they have been paid?

[gez18]

havnt read all your post lol too much for me to take in hehe
but the last paragraph best thing to do is send a support ticket to the network n they'll give you the answer, so then you now either way n wont get put on hold

[Haggisuk99]

I did submit a ticket, their response was

Thus, due to the same referral from your home address, your account is now in violation of our terms. As such, your account has been made invalid

My point is that it shouldnt be classed as the same address though

[gez18]

damn suppose i should of read the whole message lol.
basicly i had the same with the first one i ever did yes i was mad but best thing is move on n try even harder now i have about a grands worth of freebies for about £25 spent.
it is a gutter but they have to do it as the internet seems to be riddled with bad people.

[Sephora]

Ask Giveaway if they can't just delete your lodger's account - that person will need to email them to confirm. Hopefully they will be nice enough to sort this out so you don't lose your account and the other referrals. They can choose to keep you on hold but it wouldn't be very nice of them... Other networks like the fab FreebieJeebies would sort something out; so next time choose your Network carefully

[dav2612]

If I am following this correctly I would think that it is your wife's account that will be classed as the same address, not your lodger.

[Haggisuk99]

Originally Posted by dav2612

If I am following this correctly I would think that it is your wife's account that will be classed as the same address, not your lodger.

My wife hasnt got an account

[Haggisuk99]

Originally Posted by Sephora

Hopefully they will be nice enough to sort this out so you don't lose your account and the other referrals. They can choose to keep you on hold but it wouldn't be very nice of them... Other networks like the fab FreebieJeebies would sort something out; so next time choose your Network carefully

Some good advice there thanks. I am awaiting giveaways reply atm but if it takes another week for them to reply then this is going to take weeks to sort out.
Next time I will choose more carefully, I am just sorry that I never came across this site in the beginning as it has helped me no end to understand the way this works which is quite daunting when you are first starting out.

[Florrie]

Don't lose all hope yet, I'm sure if you explain fully to giveaway the situation they may unblock your account.

[Haggisuk99]

Originally Posted by dav2612

If I am following this correctly I would think that it is your wife's account that will be classed as the same address, not your lodger.

I see what you mean now. My wife hasnt signed up, she was talking with our lodger and explained the offer and showed her the site. Our lodger thought it was great idea and was sure that she could get the refferals she needed so she signed up under my link and completed one of the offers. When i came home my wife was excited and told me all about it thinking that she was helping me out, she wasnt to know it wasnt allowed and frankly at that point neither did I. I had scanned the t&c's quickly but Ive never counted our lodger as being part of our household. She has her own space in this house and her mail comes marked as 10a not 10 where we live basically.
When i read about this sort of thing I thought I would send a trouble ticket off to make sure but frankly i never expected them to invalidate the entire account as a result.

[tombsc]

If your lodger is at 10A, and you are at 10, then that's a different address. No problem.
If your lodger signed up from your computer, then that's 2 sign ups from the same address. That's a problem.

[FurbtasticM]

When you said "my wife says that her and my lodger had completed an offer for us" I assumed, like Dav2612, that your wife also has an account.

Either way, the rule is one account per household* and being realistic, I think it is unlikely that you will get your account back.

*The system relies on advertisers paying commission for referrals and they are prepared to do so to get new and potential customers. Take LOVEFiLM for example, there would be no benefit to them sending trials to 5 people who all lived at the same house.

That is my understanding anyway.

[Cefca]

Originally Posted by Haggisuk99

I see what you mean now. My wife hasnt signed up

But you did say:

and my wife says that her and my lodger had completed an offer for us

[the_saint]

Originally Posted by Haggisuk99

We have a lodger that lives with us and technically her part of the house is designated 10a we live at 10 however we share the same door,

You need clarify this. Are they a lodger or do the live at a seperate address? A lodger is someone who lives at the same address. If it is a different address they are not your lodger. Do they share amenities like kitchen, toilet etc? Do they have their own seperate gas and electricity? I suspect the position is that you rent a room out and give it your own designation 10a but if you did a land registry search etc this might not show up. I would want clarification on this.

so when i came home one night and my wife says that her and my lodger had completed an offer for us and it had gone green as well, I was over the moon.

More importantly, was it done on a comp with the same IP address? That is a good indicator of two sign ups at same house.

What happens in the case of someone who lives in a bedsit etc techically they share the same address like my lodger does but they are classed as a different family styled households and the house is split into room numbers or have ohter designations, do they class this as a different address or the same one?, does this mean that if one signs up then if the rest do a while later cause they think its a good idea then the accounts invalid automatically?

This is the same idea as how it happens for student halls, you may have a different room number but the address is still the same.

The rules say in the terms and cons
There may not be more than one account per household per Giveaway web site. A household includes your mailing address
Can anyone explain why to me please?

(1) Even if the reason is because Elvis Pressly is dead it doesn't matter. Those are the T&C's that you said you read, they do not have to justify why they have them. That is not the point of contract law.

My lodger is not part of my family household, technically she lives at 10a we live at 10. We do share the same front door. (So do blocks of flats)

As stated, do you share amenities etc?

My point is that it shouldnt be classed as the same address though

Again, it's difficult to say without knowing the full set up.

The point is that you have to look at it objectively. Giveaway get plenty of people breaking the T&Cs. In some case it is innocent, others it is not. But you can bet everyone who gets put on hold will try and claim it was an innocent mistake.

Without accusing you one way or the other how can Giveaway know for sure which ones are genuine and which are not? They have procedures and rules in place to combat fraud and if you have fallen foul of them it is usually for a reason. If they investigate and can't satisfy themselves it is innocent then it's too bad I guess.

If it was a genuine mistake then I sympathise, but you have to see it from their point of view too.

[Haggisuk99]

Originally Posted by tombsc

If your lodger is at 10A, and you are at 10, then that's a different address. No problem.
If your lodger signed up from your computer, then that's 2 sign ups from the same address. That's a problem.

I believe that the lodger used her own laptop to do the signup.
But if wireless was on at the time she may have connected to my network

**** this gets worse

[Haggisuk99]

Originally Posted by the_saint

You need clarify this. Are they a lodger or do the live at a seperate address? A lodger is someone who lives at the same address. If it is a different address they are not your lodger. Do they share amenities like kitchen, toilet etc? Do they have their own seperate gas and electricity? I suspect the position is that you rent a room out and give it your own designation 10a but if you did a land registry search etc this might not show up. I would want clarification on this.

No you are quite right we rent a room out to her and share the amenities, we have given it the designation 10a to seperate out mail.

Originally Posted by the_saint

More importantly, was it done on a comp with the same IP address? That is a good indicator of two sign ups at same house.

This is something I am not sure of now it is entirely possible that in using her laptop she connected to my wireless network (see previous post)

Originally Posted by the_saint

The point is that you have to look at it objectively. Giveaway get plenty of people breaking the T&Cs. In some case it is innocent, others it is not. But you can bet everyone who gets put on hold will try and claim it was an innocent mistake.

I guess i never thought of that I was just outraged because I hadnt thought that I had done anything wrong

Originally Posted by the_saint

Without accusing you one way or the other how can Giveaway know for sure which ones are genuine and which are not? They have procedures and rules in place to combat fraud and if you have fallen foul of them it is usually for a reason. If they investigate and can't satisfy themselves it is innocent then it's too bad I guess.

If it was a genuine mistake then I sympathise, but you have to see it from their point of view too.

You are right in what you say. And I can see it more now, never thought of it that way. Ive just reacted to the incredibly long wait for the ticket to be answered then for them to say this it just got to me a bit. I suppose that it would have been worse if i hadnt sent in the ticket to query it and had got all my refferals in and green then gone to verification and it had happened, then i would be kicking myself more than now after reading this post.

Is there anyway around this where I can show that it was genuine or not or are they the sort of network that basically wont care and thats it?
I have to ask in the faint glimmer of hope that this could be resolved......

[dav2612]

I personally think it is harsh that your account goes on hold rather than losing a green but that seems to be how it is treated. All you can do is explain the situation and hope for the best. Some people do get the situation resolved, some don't. Good luck with it.

[gez18]

just move on and dont dwell on it, my g/f now wife lol did the same on nextgen.giveaway lived at a different addy but put mine in (god i was mad), yes i was pee'd off with the site but they have to be careful who uses there site, n yes im still on hold 1 yr later and got over my grudge with the giveaway network.

[Haggisuk99]

Does this mean though that because my account is like it is on the console site that it will affect the rest of the giveaway sites?
Be nice if I could actually get to speak to teh network instead of having to wait weeks for a trouble ticket to be answered.

[Jay86]

even if your account is on hold on one site, you can still complete all other sites.