age The minimum age. Adult promotions are ordinary, and a prize is not payable to somebody who was not eligible when they entered, however long the claim has taken.
Prize Form / The conditions
Clause 05
What the prize asks of you after you have won
Winning is the easy half. A claim then passes through eligibility, proof, form and a decision that the terms reserve to the promoter - which means the party that benefits from a strict reading is also the party that applies it. This page lists the four tests and the wording that decides them.
Claim stub
- Claim
- PF-54-06
- Subject
- The four tests
- Tests
- eligibility / proof / form / decision
- Judge
- the promoter
Money2 forms: a credit to a balance, a payment to an account in your name
A buyer3 forms: a voucher, a thing with a market, a personalised thing with none
Attendance1 form: an experience that can only be attended, on a date
A condition2 forms: credit behind a condition, points locked to a product
Direct answerA claimed prize normally has to pass four tests: the winner was eligible to enter, the entry complied with the promotion's form and rules, the winner can prove identity and address, and the promoter's decision on any dispute is final. The last of those is the widest, because it makes the promoter the judge of its own promotion, and it is the clause that decides most contested claims.
Test 1: eligibilityTest 2: the entryTest 3: proofTest 4: the promoter decides
Test 1 - eligibility
Eligibility clauses are short and each one is a genuine reason a prize can be refused. The ordinary set is: a minimum age, a territory, an exclusion of employees and their households, a limit of one entry per person or per household, a requirement that the entry was made through the advertised route, and, where the promotion is tied to a purchase, evidence of that purchase.
Two of these are worth reading closely in a prize context. The household rule is what makes a shared address or a shared account a risk - the same signal family that the one-account desk covers from the operator's side. And a purchase requirement turns a free draw into a promoted purchase, which changes what the promotion is and what a consumer-protection body expects of it.
Test 2 - the entry itself
An entry can fail on its form rather than on who made it: a required field left blank, an entry made through a route the terms did not authorise, more entries than the rules permit, an automated or bulk submission, or an entry that arrived after the closing time even where the promotion's own server accepted it. The terms usually state that entries are deemed received when the promotion's systems record them, which puts the record rather than the reader's screen in control.
Test 3 - proof
Before a non-cash prize is delivered, the promotion checks that the person claiming is the person who entered. The usual documents are a photographic identity document, a proof of address dated inside a stated window, and sometimes a signed form or a declaration. Where the prize is an experience that involves travel, a passport may be required as well, and the promotion's own timetable for providing it may be shorter than the time a reader needs to obtain one.
Test 4 - the sentence that ends the argument
The clause to find. Look for wording such as "the promoter's decision is final", "the promoter reserves the right to disqualify any entry" or "in the event of a dispute the promoter's decision shall be conclusive". It is standard in promotional terms, and it is the reason a claim based on a reader's own reading of a rule is difficult to win rather than merely unlikely to win.
This desk does not treat that as sinister. It is what a promotion's terms do, in the same way that the contract desk describes the standard-form contract behind an account, and it has a purpose: a promotion with thousands of entries needs one decision-maker. The consequence for a reader is narrower and practical - the argument to have is about the facts of the four tests, not about the fairness of the promotion, and it is best made early and in writing.
Worked example - four tests and where a claim usually fails (illustrative)
Tests a claim has to pass, and the ordinary failure rate in each direction:
eligibility (age, territory, household, purchase): 1 check
the entry (route, count, timing, completeness): 1 check
proof (identity, address, signed form): 1 check
the promoter's decision on any dispute: 1 check, with no further reading above it
A claim that fails one of the first three can normally be corrected while the window is open:
a missing proof of address sent on day 9 of a 30-day window leaves 21 days to fix it
A claim that is refused under the fourth cannot be re-read by anybody else inside the promotion:
the same evidence, sent on the same day 9, is decided and closed
So the practical reading is this: 3 of the 4 tests are factual and fixable, and 1 of the 4 is a decision. Spend the effort on the first three before the deadline, because the fourth is not an argument about evidence.
The five conditions a reader can check in advance
check 1
check 2
territory The territory. Delivery is often restricted to the countries the promoter can ship to, and a reader who has entered from the right place but cannot receive the item has a problem the terms anticipated.
check 3
household The household rule. One entry per household means a shared address can disqualify an entry that was made honestly, and the promotion's systems may see one household as one entrant.
check 4
purchase Whether a purchase was required. A purchase requirement changes the promotion's character and the reader's rights, and it is usually stated in the first paragraph rather than the last.
check 5
decision Who decides. If the terms make the promoter the final judge, that is the end of the internal process, and the next step outside it is a consumer-protection route rather than an appeal to the promotion.