People's Postcode Lottery
Postcode lottery emailed postcode lottery to say this draw should be made public and that I had noticed certain areas winning quite often, they asked for my postcode to check what winning have been in my area, which came back as low, then low and behold Wolverhampton became a 30,000 pound winning area four days later. Thanks to the support of People's Postcode Lottery players, during challenging times, Keep Britain Tidy has been able to continue its work to ensure that everyone, no matter where they live, can be proud of the environment on their doorstep. Postcode lottery emailed postcode lottery to say this draw should be made public and that I had noticed certain areas winning quite often, they asked for my postcode to check what winning have been in my area, which came back as low, then low and behold Wolverhampton became a 30,000 pound winning area four days later. Postcode Lottery Limited is incorporated in England and Wales and is licensed and regulated by the Gambling Commission (licence numbers 000-000829-N-102511 and 000-000829-R-102513). Registered office: Postcode Lottery Ltd, 2nd Floor, 31. People’s Postcode Lottery is a subscription lottery offering material prizes and cash based on your postcode. Players pay monthly subscription to participate in the game. Launched in 2005, the lottery is operated by Novamedia with the goal to raise money for good causes and to enable people across the United Kingdom to win fantastic prizes.
In the United Kingdom, the postcode lottery is the unequal provision of services such as healthcare, education and insurance prices depending on the geographic area or postcode. Postcodes can directly affect the services an area can obtain, such as insurance prices. Despite having many non-postal uses, postcodes are only determined based on Royal Mail operations and bear little relation to local government boundaries. More broadly, there is an unequal provision of services around the country, especially in public services,[1] such as access to cancer drugs in the healthcare system[2] or quality of education.[3] These are more likely to be a result of local budgets and decision-making than actual postcodes.
Postcodes were devised solely for the purposes of sorting and directing mail and rarely coincide with political boundaries. However, over time they have become a geographical reference in their own right with postcodes and postcode groups becoming synonymous with certain towns and districts. Further to this, the postcode has been used by organisations for other applications including government statistics, marketing, calculation of car and household insurance premiums and credit referencing.
Changing postcodes[edit]
There are several groups, mostly on the fringes of major population centres, who are affected in one way or another by the associations of their postcode. There is a movement in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead to change the first two characters of their postcodes from SL to WM for vanity, so as not to be associated with Slough.[4] A businessman in Ilford wishes to have the postcode district of IG1 changed to E19 as he claims customers do not realise his business is based in London.[5]
Some residents of West Heath in SE2 asked to have their postcodes changed to that of adjacent Bexleyheath, citing higher insurance premiums as reason to change.[6] Some residents of Kingston Vale in SW15 wish to have their postcodes changed to adjacent Kingston upon Thames for the same reasons[citation needed].
In all these cases Royal Mail has said that there is 'virtually no hope' of changing the postcode, referring to their policy of changing postcodes only to match changes in their operations.[7] Under this policy residents of the Wirral Peninsula had their postcodes changed from the L (Liverpool) to CH (Chester) group when a new sorting office was opened.[8]
Some postcode areas straddle England's borders with Wales and Scotland. Examples of such postcodes include CH4, SY10, NP16 and TD15. This has led to British Sky Broadcasting subscribers receiving the wrong BBC and ITV regions, and newly licensed radio amateurs being given incorrect call signs.
Extended use of postcodes[edit]
Postcomm says the following regarding the extended use of postcodes and the Postcode Address File (PAF):
Many organisations – including new postal operators, banks, insurance companies and others offering to deliver goods to your door — have a need for this information. It would be very time-consuming and costly for anyone to try and replicate the list, so Royal Mail licenses PAF data, for a fee, allowing others to use it. ... Although we have a role in ensuring that PAF is managed well, Postcomm does not intervene to resolve disputes involving individual postcodes. A postcode is a routing instruction, allowing a postal operator to sort and deliver mail accurately and efficiently. It is not necessarily a geographically accurate description of where a property is located.[9]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Butler, Patrick (2000-11-09). 'Q&A: Postcode lottery'. The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
- ^Devlin, Kate (2008-09-08). 'Healthcare postcode lottery means patients losing out on cancer treatments'. The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
- ^Garner, Richard (2009-10-19). 'Postcode lottery still determines degree achievement'. The Independent. London. Retrieved 2010-05-22.
- ^'England 'Snobs' want to slough off postcode'. BBC News. 2003-01-17. Retrieved 2010-01-04.
- ^Scrivens, Louise (2005-04-05). 'England London The power of the postcode'. BBC News. Retrieved 2010-01-04.
- ^'Cracking The Codes Not Easy (from This Is Local London)'. Thisislocallondon.co.uk. 2002-03-12. Archived from the original on 2008-05-26. Retrieved 2010-01-04.
- ^Scrivens, Louise (2005-04-05). 'UK England London The power of the postcode'. BBC News. Retrieved 2010-01-04.
- ^'Postman Pat Gets L Of A Row Off His Chest — This Is Wirral'. Archive.thisiswirral.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2010-01-04.
- ^Postal Services Commission (March 2009). 'Royal Mail's Postcode Address File'(PDF). Postcomm. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2009-09-03. Retrieved 2009-08-03.
If you live in Scotland – and even if you live elsewhere in the UK – you need to take care. I’m not talking about the Covid-19 threat, although of course we should all pay attention to the government’s ‘Hands. Space. Face’ public information campaign. (Disclaimer: I’m pretty sure that’s the latest slogan, but even if it is by the time you read this a new mantra may well have been introduced.) No, Scots are being warned to take a careful look at their post as they are currently being targeted by a fake ‘postcode lottery’ scam.
People in the Highlands and on the Isle of Skye are said to have been particularly affected by letters which purport to be from the People’s Postcode Lottery. This is a genuine organisation, which dispenses cash prizes to thousands of winners across the country every week, and the letters inform recipients that they’ve won a share of £425,000.
Looks official
The missives look rather official. They appear to come from a head office address in London and signed by one ‘Susan Blair’, who is listed as the lottery’s supposed president, but – and this is the red flag – they say that winners must pay a ‘processing fee’ in order to release their prize. (Incidentally, I did a quick search and – what a surprise – Susan doesn’t appear to be on LinkedIn.)
David MacKenzie, Trading Standards Manager at the Highland Council, told North Ayrshire local paper, the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, ‘Scam mail can take the form of fake lotteries or imitate genuine lotteries. Scam mail is sent with the sole intention of obtaining money through deception and/or fraud. It is a common theme among lottery scams to ask for an upfront fee to release winnings.’
People's Postcode Lottery Scotland
Don’t pay the price
David is right there. Sometimes the scammers will say it’s for administration, bank fees or delivery, but a legitimate lottery wouldn’t ask winners for a fee. It is not best practice. If you suspect you’ve received a fake prize draw letter like this one, I want to be really clear – don’t pay to claim the prize you appear to have been awarded, and don’t give them your personal or financial details either. If in doubt, go online, independently find the contact details for the organisation the letter appears to come from and get in touch to check the authenticity of the win.
How to avoid prize draw scams is something I’ve written about before, but it’s also worth bearing in mind that if you haven’t signed up to play the People’s Postcode Lottery in the first place, then you can’t be a winner, can you?! This was exactly the same for the so-called fake Facebook lottery, which I covered last year – it was impossible to win, because it didn’t actually exist!
All too common
A spokesperson for the People’s Postcode Lottery told the paper, ‘In common with other high-profile organisations and businesses, criminals may seek to exploit our reputation by using our name in fraudulent communications. This is an issue which we take extremely seriously. We liaise closely with the relevant authorities, including the police. We encourage anyone who receives a potentially fraudulent communication to contact Action Fraud, the national fraud and cyber-crime reporting centre.’
The spokesperson is right there too. You might think it’s not worth reporting letters like these, but if we’re ever going to stop the scammers – and as a Scambassador for National Trading Standards Scams Team and Friends Against Scams I’m absolutely committed to doing that – then we need a body of examples and evidence.
Sarah Burns is Prizeology’s Chief Prizeologist and a National Trading Standards Scams Team Scambassador.