Getting the good news about winning a contest is some of the exciting experience in life. Imagine getting the phone call or the letter that starts with, “Congratulations, you have won…”.

To win prizes from a contest is not as easy as it sounds. It is all about probability, skills and a little bit of luck. Therefore, you probably need to enter ten different contests before you can win one.

However, you do not want to waste your time on contests that are scams and shams.

Here are some of the signs of scams to look out for when joining a contest:

  1. The contest does not have a clearly spelled out Terms and Conditions (T&C).
  2. A contest organiser contacted you saying that you won the contest, but you never entered the contest in the first place! Oh, and the email you received is from a free email such as Yahoo! or Gmail, or the phone call was from a mobile phone number.
  3. You “won” a contest where you have to pick up at a certain location – oh, and by the way, you need to listen to a 90-minute “presentation” while you’re at it.
  4. The contest asks you to pay an entry fee. Be careful when asked to pay a registration fee, because then the contest is called gambling instead. A popular example are SMS contests where you have to pay certain SMS fee to enter. The National Fatwa Council’s declared that SMS-based contests containing elements of chance is haram.
  5. The contest asks for your credit card number.
  6. The contest page or website contains many typo and misspells.
  7. The contest site/page does not have proper contact information of the organiser. Try contact the organizer via available mediums such as Facebook private messaging, chat/SMS, or even phone call. If the organizer is not contactable, there is a chance the contest is a scam.

scam in malaysia

Also read our guide on why scammers create these scams.

To be on the safe side, come to this site often because we only list contests from reliable and trusted organisers. We even avoid contests from companies related to tobacco, alcohol, gambling, lottery, and excessive entertainment.

Do you have other tips about how to identify scams that you can share here?