It is a ridiculous question considering the people that read my blog have an interest in contests and sweepstakes. However, I get at least one email a week from a fellow contestor stating, even though they are entering, they are concerned that giving all their contact information (name, address, email address, phone number) plus their exact birth date to sponsors is leaving them open to identity theft and they want my advice.
My response is to let go of the fear and enter away. I have no fear entering and neither should you. Here is why. No one is really interested in your information except the sponsor. Privacy laws prevent the sponsor from selling your data, and from a marketing perspective, selling their customer’s and prospect’s information would be counter productive to all their marketing efforts.
All anyone would get is your name, address, email, and birth date. Not enough information to do anything illegal with. Also, you may have already posted that information to any number of social networking sites (such as Facebook) that anyone in the world would have access too. Plus, all of your personal information is currently attached to Internet in some way; your bank, the government, etc.
I have been entering contests on a daily basis since 2001. I have never heard a company reporting a breech of their contest database, but yesterday, yet again, it was reported that millions of transactions had been “compromised” by a global cyber fraud operation (Heartland Payment Systems Hacked).
I am not saying that identity theft doesn’t occur, but it is more likely to happen when someone takes your credit card out of sight, such as in a restaurant or full serve gas station, or as part of a larger fraudulent scheme (Huge Security Breech), not from you entering to win a gift basket full of skin creams.
So, let go of your fear, enter away and keep checking your mail, email or voicemail for that winning notification!
Tags: hacks, identity theft, privacy laws
I would prefer not to give my exact birth date. It gives more information to those who could try to use the information illegally.
There could also be age discrimination. Some older contesters tell me that they feel they are left aside (or discriminated against). The fact of saying that we are major should be sufficient!
In some contests, they also ask information about our income… The amount of information we have to provide should be limited !
There is a TV program in French called « La facture » (the bill).
They regularly give us testimonies of individuals who were victim of identity theft. They recommend being very careful about the information we give on Facebook or identical sites. Our life could be transformed into a nightmare…
How many people interviewed on La Fracture had their identities stolen from entering a contest? I bet none.
I am guessing having their information on social networking sites was part of the trouble they encountered.
In those cases nobody knew for sure what caused the problem. They were only making hypothesis.
I personally have a problem of Phishing… I sometimes receive messages telling me I won huge amounts of money. I didn’t enter those sweepstakes. I receive messages from supposedly my bank asking me to update my account and confirm my password. My bank tells me it doesn’t come from them. The messages I receive have their logo and look like their website. I also have other banks having a try…
I am confident on most of the contests but I am under the impression there could be some Phishing. Someone can build a website and have a fake contest to collect information. Then they can go on, choose a few individuals and try to get more out of them.
Where do these people take the information on me? They have my email, my phone number… I am not listed on any social website as Facebook.
Fortunately, I never fell in any of these traps. But I would prefer not having to give too much information when I enter a contest… (for security reasons and equity reasons in order not to be discriminated against)