Too good to be true?

The internet offers a vast number of competitions, and they are easier than ever to enter. So what's the catch? Debbie Davies investigates

Television talent competitions may be the answer if you need a new life, but if all you want is a year's free supply of Fairy Liquid, you could do worse than entering competitions on the internet. It's so easy that thousands of people in Britain have become online serial "compers".

Debbie Morgan is one of them. She started comping when her six-week-old baby was keeping her awake at night. "I was surfing the internet and I came across a link for Loquax," she says. Loquax is a popular portal that lists hundreds of competitions. Morgan has broadband internet access and reasoned that it would cost nothing to have a go, so she started entering competitions. After a barren few months – the regulars in Loquax's chat room kept her going during that initial period – her first prize arrived, a copy of Stephen King's latest novel. Soon, the trickle of prizes had turned into a flood. Last week her inbox included a congratulatory e-mail from H. Samuel, the jewellery seller. She had won £500 in the retailer's website prize draw. Morgan now allocates a couple of hours each day and enters around 2,000 competitions a month. She averages about eight prizes per month.

How is it possible to enter so many competitions and still have a life? First, there is no shortage of supply; the market has expanded rapidly to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the internet. Another change is that the process has been streamlined for compers. Sites such as Loquax make it very easy for a large number of people to go quickly to the right competitions. Loquax lists competitions by new announcements, closing date, type of prize or style of competition. Once you register with the site, a tracker stops you wasting time trying to enter the same competition twice. It takes seconds to click through from Loquax to competition sites, enter and then click back again. Using the autocomplete function in Internet Explorer saves having to type your name, e-mail and address into competition entry forms. Many compers download Google's toolbar for speedy research on competition quiz questions.

For those who prefer cruise control, there are sites that will manage entry for you as well. For £24.95 a year, Prizefocus automatically enters you into 500 competitions. All you have to do is enter your details once, pay the subscription, and everything else is done for you.

Prizefocus may be the ultimate in labour-saving efficiency for compers, but doesn't a fully automated hobby lack a purpose? What's more, the level of automation is possible only because the internet has changed the content of most competitions: keen compers feel they are being deskilled. Before the internet, competitions were a way to persuade shoppers to buy one product instead of another. Because they were making a sale, companies were obliged to add an element of skill and judgement – the tie-breaker slogan – to avoid their competitions being classified as a draw: an unlicensed lottery, in other words.

According to Yvonne Richardson, promotions manager for Nestlé Rowntree, this type of competition is a thing of the past. "Shoppers want to know what they have won as they tear off the wrapper," she says. Nestlé Rowntree is trying to find new ways for consumers to interact with its brands online, and drawing in a new set of younger consumers. And that's the key: the opportunity to collect information from huge numbers of consumers over the internet is what competitions on the internet are often about. Mark Foster, sales director at My Offers, a competition website, says major consumer goods companies such as Procter & Gamble and Reckitt Benckiser have gone online to collect consumer information.

The My Offers website runs surveys for its clients. For every questionnaire completed, My Offers enters you into a draw to win a prize: last year, the site gave away over £250,000 worth. The site's mail-brokering division claims to be the largest e-mail broker in the UK with 7.2 million e-mail addresses.

With such huge numbers involved, at some point the package-holiday effect will kick in: too many people going to the same place will ruin it for everybody. Compers already know it is much easier to win by entering competitions offline. Debbie Morgan now enters about 150 competitions offline every month, compared with the 1,850 she enters online, but half her prizes come from offline competitions. If Morgan were a professional poker player, she would measure the odds and give up internet competitions all together. But for her, they're a hobby. When she wins, she celebrates in Loquax's chat rooms.

"I couldn't bear to lose my internet, it keeps me connected to my comping friends," she says. "They've been there for me through thick and thin over the past year and I would miss them." But for the rest of us, entering competitions online may quickly become tiresome.

www.loquax.co.uk; www.prizefocus.co.uk; www.myoffers.co.uk