Sweepstakes Beginner Tips and FAQ #1: Why You Must Use Valid Information

Sweepstakes Beginner Tips and FAQ #1:

One of the most common questions I get about how to win money and prizes from sweepstakes is:

Do I have to use my real contact information to enter a sweepstakes?

The short answer:

YES.YES.YES.YES.YES.

Why Use Valid Information?

I’m sure many of you (like me) don’t like giving out your contact information.

Worried that  it might be sold and/or you will receive an abundance of junk mail and spam?

I was too. However, it is an absolute must if you want to win sweepstakes. Especially high value cash or travel sweepstakes!

Email

I recommend you set up a secondary email account exclusively for sweepstakes. Gmail is the perfect platform to do this with. You can be logged into several emails at once. Which keeps your primary email free of marketing emails from sponsors, but only two clicks away from your sweepstakes email.

A tip to avoid  a lot of spam from sweepstakes sponsors: Make sure the box saying you would like to receive more information is always unchecked. Don’t worry you will still be notified if you win! It just saves you from a lot of annoying mail, unless you really do want to receive an endless amount of newsletters about their latest product...

Name

In order to claim most sweepstakes you have to provide some sort of identification that verifies who you are. So it is very important to use your actual name that can be verified via affidavit, passport, drivers license, etc.

Birth Date:

Again, after winning most will seek to verify your information before mailing you the prize. So it is important that it actually matches, or you may be disqualified.

How much would it suck to win a Hawaii vacation and lose it?

Phone Number

You will most likely be notified via phone when you first win. So it is imperative to use your real phone number, if you actually want your prize.

Address

After verifying who you are, generally the prize is mailed to you. So, make sure you use a valid street address. Most sponsors will not mail to P.O. box addresses!

Because you are giving out such sensitive information it is important to know that these contests are legit! In a future post I will advise you on how to avoid the fakes and scams.