National Publishing Company

In December 2004, the Bureau resolved a complaint under the promotional contests provision of the Competition Act regarding a delay in the distribution of prizes. The contest was advertised on a website and open to all residents of Canada. The prizes included 10 trips valued at approximately $5000 each and secondary prizes valued between $28.95 and $99.99. The complainant discovered that she had won a secondary prize by checking the promoter’s website, but she had never been notified of her win.

Although the contest closed on October 20, 2003, a number of secondary prizes were not sent to the winners until November 5, 2004. This could have raised an issue under the Act.

Company representatives indicated that mistakes did occur with the distribution of secondary prizes because of confusion caused by overlapping responsibilities in different cities. The company took 12 months to investigate, identify and resolve the problem. To ensure future compliance with the Act, the company agreed to do the following:

• remind the people responsible for promotional contests in each of their markets to keep proper documentation for future contests; and

• establish safeguards to ensure that all prizes are distributed expeditiously, ideally within 30 days of a contest’s conclusion, with remedial action when a prize is not delivered within that time frame.