Tips – Preventing Cheaters from Winning Giveaways on Your Blog

I love my job and I have been blogging for almost 6 years now and 4 of those years have been on the Two Classy Chics. While I enjoy my job a lot, I really despise people who cruise blog giveaways and cheat when entering giveaways. I mean really…cheating to try to win a $5.00 kid’s DVD or a $50 gift card…it’s all the same to me.

From the beginning I have been very outspoken about all of the cheating going on with blog giveaways and have published posts on that many times. It is YOUR JOB and YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to prevent cheaters from ever winning on your blog. You OWE it to your readers and to the companies that sponsor your giveaways.

With that said, the problem is getting worse and some cheaters are being bold and telling me (when caught) that they get away with it on other blogs, why not try getting away with it on ours!!! WTH? Hmmm, no!

So today, let’s look at some of the ways I have been catching the cheaters and bring it to all of your attention.

1. Not Completing the mandatory entry or publishing some kind of nonsense response to the mandatory question! Yeah, that’s a big one & very easy to spot! If we ask you to visit the sponsor’s site & come back and tell us the name of your favorite product…surely responses like “I want to win”, “That is so cool” and “My son could use that” don’t qualify!

2. Is what I call “Tweet Hi-Jacking” and that is when a cheater will see a tweet by a legit person who is entering the giveaway, steal their tweet status link and then publish it as their own entry. Pure laziness!

3. The “repetitive tweet” is when the person entering the giveaway Tweets out the link one time and then every day comes back and submits the same exact Twitter status link, day after day…without ever Tweeting it again. Shameful! Make sure you double check those Twitter status links for correct day and time.

4. Multiple email addresses, same name, same IP. I usually see this form of cheating going on with our higher value prize giveaways. Luckily with WordPress, I can see your email address, your IP and of course…the name you submit under.

5. Fake Shares on Social Media Networks is another big one these days! Don’t take their word on it that they shared the giveaway on Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Only consider those share entries when they leave a direct link to the shared post. Make sure you double check that link to make sure it was published by them and not hi-jacked from someone else.

6. When checking out mandatory entries, look for those people who copy & paste the person’s answer above them. A few days ago I caught someone who copy & pasted the previous person’s answer to use as their own answer…typos & grammar mistakes along with it. LAZY and a no-go on our blog.

7. Some cheaters will go follow a sponsor or you for that matter on Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media sites and will immediately unfollow you after it verifies through Giveaway Tools or they will unfollow you and the sponsor immediately after the giveaway closes. What a shame that they are doing that!!!

As bloggers…we owe it to our readers and the legit people who enter our giveaways to do everything in our power to ensure that cheaters never win. Some of the reason this is getting so out of hand is because…the cheaters are indeed getting away with it on other blogs. I know this to be FACT because I enter giveaways and I host giveaways and see it happening all of the time!!!

So there you have it…my tips on what to spot when it comes to cheaters entering the giveaways on your blog.