There are some instances where you cannot help but expect the best. Sadly, sometimes the reality of something just doesn’t live up to the expectation that you set for it. Rather than being rewarded, you become disappointed as your expectations fail.
This is, unfortunately, how it is with some websites today. First, we hear an excited murmur about a site. Next, we find out the site name and some basic information about it. All this builds up our excitement of what is sure to be a fantastic site.
In this ContestGirl.com review, we will look at a site that had us very excited after discovering it exists. We will also look at whether or not the site lived up to our expectations or if it fell far short of what we hoped for.
When first visiting the site, you can instantly browse the different categories of draws available. There is no need to register a user account if you don’t want to.
There is, however, some advantage to registering a user account. This is that you will be given access to a special section of the site entitled My Entries.
The My Entries section allows you to keep track of all the sweeps that you have already entered into. The downside is that the site doesn’t track this automatically. You will need to specifically add a draw to your My Entries each time after you have entered.
If you think this is worthwhile, then you can register a player account quickly and easily. You will need to provide a username and a password. The choice as to whether or not to supply your email address is entirely up to you.
This is a great change, as most sites insist on you providing your email. Here, however, the only reason that the site says you will need to do so is that you can reset your password if you forget it.
Regardless of whether or not you register a user account, once you have found a draw that you like, you can look at the additional information about it underneath its header.
This information includes the draw’s end date and restrictions based on age and/or location. This is handy to see if you are eligible for a specific draw at a glance.
Once you have found a draw you wish to enter and are eligible for, simply click on the post title. Doing this will take you to the official website of the draw operator. Here, you can follow the onscreen prompts to enter the draw.
Is ContestGirl.com Legit or a Scam?
There is no possible way that you can be scammed while using ContestGirl.com. The site is merely a simple blog that posts links to great free draws.
The fact that you are not even required to share your email address proves that the site doesn’t really want anything out of you except for you to make use of their great service.
Therefore, you can go ahead and use this site without any worry about any loss that you may sustain.
User Experience
As good as this site is, there is one aspect that severely and unforgivingly lets the site down. The design.
The site looks like it was first developed in the earliest days of the Internet. Even though it has been around since 2006, we would guess its inception at about 1982.
There are no buttons on the site, only simple text hyperlinks. These are what makes up the entire vertical menu on both sides of the page.
Navigating around with these old-fashioned links is not entirely hard to do. However, it is not something that you want to do much of either. It is easier to simply stay on one page and see what you can find there.
The only redeeming factor about this site is that it loads quickly. This is not hard considering there are almost no elements aside from text that it needs to load.
On mobile devices, the site looks as bad as it does on a PC. The entire site is not really optimised for mobile and so tries to force the full desktop version of the site onto the small screen of your device.
This makes the site look even worse than it originally does—something that we personally think is somewhat of an achievement.
And then, as if to make matters worse, there are the ads. We will say that these are not quite overpowering. However, there are still ads present at the top of most pages. There are also large chunks missing between content that you can see has been left as a placeholder for an ad.
Lotteries Available
As mentioned, the only draws listed on ContestGirl.com are free lottery draws or sweepstakes that are run by companies or brands that are wanting to give stuff away.
The site has six distinct categories for the types prizes available from its listed draws. These include:
Cash and Gift Cards
Travel
Vehicles
Electronics
House and Home
Fashion and Beauty
ContestGirl.com Extras
In terms of additional features, there is a contest filter that is located on the right side of the screen when navigating to any of the main categories.
This allows you to filter the prizes according to their type, only show prizes over a certain value, or only show draws that you enter on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
These filters are not the greatest compared to some other sites, but they can still be helpful if you are looking for something specific.
There is also a newsletter that you can sign up for. You can select if you would like to receive a newsletter focused on either the American or Canadian online contest market.
To receive this newsletter, you will need to provide your email address. According to the site, you will only ever receive a single email each week, on Wednesdays. The site is adamant that you will not be spammed into oblivion.
Payment/Withdrawal Options
Due to the site being nothing more than a blog, there are no payment or withdrawal options.
How to Claim Your Winnings
One of the unfortunate things about sites that allow you to enter many different draws is that there is no set procedure for if you win.
This is because the site that you are navigating to the draw from, such as ContestGirl.com, has nothing to do with the draw. This means they don’t get to enact any policies that should be followed when winning.
Because of this, each draw listed on the site uses its own policies, including what to do should you be a winner. These policies, and the procedures to follow when claiming your prize, are all found in the rules for each draw.
The rules for these draws are sometimes listed or linked to with the draw post. Sadly, ContestGirl.com doesn’t do this.
Instead, you will need to navigate to the draw entry page and then search for the rules relating to the draw. As always, we recommend that you read these rules and the claims process before entering.
Customer Support
The site has a very basic FAQ section. This FAQ appears to deal mainly with technical difficulties you may experience with the site and speaks very little on how everything actually works.
Therefore, if you have any burning questions, we doubt the FAQ will be much help to you.
If that is the case, there is an online form available that allows you to send a message to the people behind the site. There is no mention of how long a response will take.
Welcome Bonuses/Promotions
Welcome bonuses and promotions are not featured anywhere on Contest Girl. This doesn’t surprise us in the slightest.
Rules and Regulations
We assumed that, considering you can interact with other players by commenting on draw listings, there would be some rules governing who can register an account.
This would be a safe thing to do. Not just to ensure that nobody underage is exposed to language or speech they shouldn’t be exposed to, but also just as a precaution.
The disappointment that has been prevalent throughout the rest of the site is, unfortunately, here in this regard as well.
No rules are governing who can or cannot register a player account. In fact, there are no limitations at all on who can register and start posting things.
In credit to the site, it has put in place clauses that allow it to terminate a user’s access should they be found to be posting inappropriate content.
However, this clause is only as good as the moderators who enforce it. And, from what we can tell, this entire site is likely a one-man show.
ContestGirl.com Review Conclusion
We will not lie and say that we were not excited when we first heard about Contest Girl. Even the name inspires visions of a great site that is impeccably designed and managed.
The truth is that our expectations far outstripped the reality of this site.
From the design that comes from the prehistoric era to the fact that the rules for each draw aren’t even linked to, this site is one major disappointment.
As we said, we strongly believe that this site is a one-man show—or one-woman show to be more accurate. And for that, we give her credit for what she has done.
However, with the large number of people who could assist her with updating the site and bringing it into the 21st century, there is no excuse to have a website that looks like this.
