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Contest FAQ

For our FAQs, we seek to use the answers provided by Neopets.com whenever possible. Any additional information supplied by TNE will be listed in green text.

Current contests question areas:

Note: These questions deal with user created contests and not the Beauty, Poetry, Caption, Storytelling or other contests that are actual Neopets games.

Am I allowed a contest in my shop?
Am I allowed a contest in my guild?

Don't see what you need? Why not ask here?

Am I allowed a contest in my shop?

Unfortunately the vast majority of shop contests are scams. If any user wins a prize it is normally one of the shop owners other accounts. Because there is no real way for us to monitor if a contest is legitimate or not, we have decided to ban all contests. This is to protect innocent players that could be tricked into purchasing over-priced items. Apologies if you are a shop owner that ran a honest contest, but you should understand why we are doing this.

On August 8, 2001, Neopets banned all shop and guild contests that require users to pay to participate.

• The News page for August 8, 2001: Shop Scams - Some people have been trying to trick others into buying items from their shops, or sending them items in return for 'secrets' and contest entries. This is just a scam to get you to give them NP or items. There are no secrets to making NP fast, anyone found to have a scam in their shop will have their shop deleted and account frozen.

• The Neopets Help Section: I am afraid we cannot allow any contests anywhere on Neopets. There is no way to make sure that the contests are legitimate. The majority of contest winners are just friends of the shop owner, or fake accounts. We know a few people did award prizes to real winners, but there is no way for us to check this so we have no choice but to ban them completely.

• The editorial from week 1 of the New Neopian Times: Am I allowed a contest in my shop?
  Unfortunately the vast majority of shop contests are scams. If any user wins a prize it is normally one of the shop owners other accounts. Because there is no real way for us to monitor if a contest is legitimate or not, we have decided to ban all contests. This is to protect innocent players that could be tricked into purchasing over-priced items. Apologies if you are a shop owner that ran a honest contest, but you should understand why we are doing this.

• The editorial from week 2 of the New Neopian Times: Can I have a contest in my guild?
  I am afraid we cannot allow any contests anywhere on Neopets. There is no way to make sure that the contests are legitimate. The majority of contest winners are just friends of the shop owner, or fake accounts. We know a few people did award prizes to real winners, but there is no way for us to check this so we have no choice but to ban them completely.

In short, this was just another fun thing that scammers ruined for the honest players.

Some users will point out that not all “contests” cost players anything. As far as I can see, the contests that Neopets refers to are the pay for play variety. What is "pay for play"? As you can probably guess from the words, it is anything you have to pay to be able to play. Payment can be either by buying something or donating something.

Here are some common “pay for play” contests:

• Buy the most To win this, the shop owner will claim that a prize will go to whoever spends the most in that shop. The items in the shop are often worthless and always overpriced.
• Buy the mystery item Feeling lucky? To win the prize for this contest, you have to guess which item the shop owner has picked out and then buy it before someone else does.
• Raffle Ah, yes, pay for play at its finest. You know that the item you are buying is worthless and overpriced, but the shop or guild owner assures you that each item buyer will be entered into a drawing for a special prize.
• Donate This is usually divided into two types, donating items to/for a guild, or buying overpriced worthless items to benefit a guild.

Sadly, not all contests were honest. Often the scammer would either not award anything or would send the prize to a dummy account or to a friend. Then when other users contacted the “winner” they would hear how great the scammer was and how lucky they felt to win and how much they spent, and blah blah blah blah blah…

Keep in mind, free competitions are still allowed. These include:

FTP These are found on the chat boards. The first user to post on that board (sometimes the first user to post a specific word or phrase on that board) will be sent an item. This costs the user nothing since the board creator simply has to look at the board and send the item to the winner. The board creator may put additional limits like “no double posts” if they are looking for a certain post number to award the prize. If the board creator chooses to not send something, nobody who posted loses anything. The board creator doesn’t gain anything from this other than goodwill from other players.

Guess and Win These can be found in guilds and shops, but are mainly found on the chat boards. The board creator will ask users to guess a certain thing such as “What color shirt am I wearing?” Then users will post their guesses on that board.  This would also include riddles. Again, if the board creator chooses to not send something or if nobody can guess correctly, nobody who posted loses anything.

Answer and Win As with the Guess and Win’s these can be found in guilds and shops, but are mainly found on the chat boards. The board creator will ask users to answer a specific question such as “What pet replaced the Tatsu?” Then users will post their answer on that board and the prize is usually given to the first post with the correct answer.  This would also include trivia questions. These are also great conversation starters, since most of these are questions that everyone who knows the answer to will have an opinion about their answer. These should not be confused with polls, however, which almost never offer prizes. As always, if the board creator chooses to not send something or if nobody can guess correctly, nobody who posted loses anything.

As long as users can play without it costing them anything, it seems that these are allowed on Neopets.

I hope this clears up any confusion on Neopets contests.

As always, play safe and have fun!

~StaggPub~

P.S. If anyone cares, today I am wearing a white shirt and the Tatsu was replaced by the Eyrie…

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