Infinite Sweeps

Earlier this week I cleaned out old emails from my "sweepstakes" account.  I had moved residences last month and just wasn't keeping up with them quite like I should have  been.  I remember glancing at this one email that congratulated me on getting a $100 Walmart gift card. I thought to myself that this is another of those incentive emails where you spend way more than what the gift card is worth just to get the card -- and end up in all sorts of financial legalese because of it.  So, at the time, I passed on it without opening the email.  While cleaning those old messages out earlier, like I said, I opened it and found that it wanted my address by a certain date to get the card.  I replied to the email to ask them, though I saw that the date had passed, was this legit or was it an incentive email.  Clearly, I am not used to winning prizes by being notified by email!  It had indeed been a legitimate win.  So my question is how does one know the good emails of this sort from the bad ones by looking at them?  The incentive ones kinda ask the same stuff, then you get another email to go here and there to put yourself in debt to get it.  I don't want to have another "one that got away" story, so please help me out with your stories and advice at to what to look for.  Can't wait to here from you all and thanks for your imput!

Every winning email I get is legit, unless it's in spam but I have had many legit emails go to my spam also, including the car and sofa I won. The bad winning emails in spam have poor english and flashing congrats banners. I have been winning for years now and you just have to weed through all the crap emails daily.

First of all, let me apologize.  I went to hit reply and got the message that a report was sent to the moderator --- SORRY!  Moderator: Would it be possible to move the reply button somewhere else, without breaking the site, so that it isn't so close to the arrows?  Please??

Thank you for your advice. I am more diligent, looking for the name of the sweepstakes to be mentioned or something.  If posts of winning subject lines could be posted in the future, that may help novices like me to better discern the good from the bad.  Again, thank you and I didn't mean to send a report; I am so regretful of that...

Hi Lee!


Sometimes it can be a little hard to filter the good emails from bad ones but we create a filter system in the email client to sort the rules.

I am working on a blog section with How To's and Sweepstakes Information and think this will be a great article to write about.

I think the best way to determine real emails from fake emails is by using the filter options for words like Remove Me and Unsubscribe to bring all newsletter's to a separate folder.

This will allow you to find real email communications to your inbox instead of a flood of newsletters.

We also filter for words like Congratulations and Respond to another folder so that you can find wins even easier.

Please do not worry about accidentally hitting the report button. It happens!

And please lookout for the tutorials we have planned for the near future.

The sponsor may still award your prize win, we have had that happen to us and still awarded the prize. It's usually up to their discretion and they may even offer an alternate prize.

I hope these little tips help and I wish you the best of luck in sweeping!

Please let us know what happens and have a great day!!!

Thanks for all the great advice and good luck with assembling your "course".  How to's are definitely a must!  I contacted them, like I said in my original post, but since the deadline passed, it was awarded to another sweepstaker--hence "The One That Got Away". Since the internet is here to stay, with email, a section on filtering and it's how to's would be especially helpful.  Affidavits would be another thing to cover.  And also, the types of prizes that just show up regardless.  Thanks for your time and empathy. Happy winning to all!

I have seen that spam wins are addressed to your email address and legitimate wins are addressed to you by name. I do not automatically discount mail in the spam folder. While it does a good job I would hate to lose out on a win by relying on a filter.