Need advice: blocking users from giveaways

[Mary]

There is an individual who follows me/my blog on all available social media sites and enters all my giveaways, even winning one of them a few months ago. Then I realized that she's giving herself extra entries by using multiple email addresses on rafflecopter (but not following me on mulitple accounts, just the primary one) and posting the link to one tweet for extra daily tweet entries.

Because of her, I had to update my giveaway policies on the site and state that I retain the right to disqualify any cheated entries. She has continued to attempt to cheat the system, but as I am now wise to her antics, I now disqualify her entries.

So my question is, should I go ahead and permanently block her IP from entering my giveaways? Should I attempt to contact her before doing so and let her know that her actions have hurt both of us? Any advice welcome!

[Kayla]

I think you should first contact her letting her know that what she has done has offended you. If she doesn't reply or continues to ignore your policies, then by all means, block her IP address.

[JoAnne]

Wow. This is a new one. It makes you wonder if she's doing it to others also to win their giveaways.

[Mary]

It's very possible, and I'm not the only blogger with this problem. I only became aware of the cheating when another blogger mentioned the repeated tweet url thing. Then, as I started keeping a closer eye on entries, I noticed the multiple emails from the same user.

[Lade]

if I were in this situation, I'd do what Kayla said

[Mary]

Update: I contacted her and let her know she was breaking my giveaway policies. She told me she was sorry and didn't even realize there was a problem. I haven't noticed an issue since we talked (she still enters my giveaways), but just to be safe, I do always check my winning entries.

[Julianna]

What's the user? I want to watch out for her on my giveaways.

and how could she NOT realize that was cheating? The girl knew what she was doing and pretended to feel bad because she got caught.

[Desert Rose Reviews]

Wow, this is a new one for me. I just started using rafflecopter for giveaways, and I'm for sure going to be keeping my eye out for something like that. I agree with Julianna though- I'm not really sure how you can NOT know you're cheating...it's pretty simple. I'm glad she seems to have stopped, but that's something to look out for. Thanks so much for sharing your concern- good to know! :)

[Erin Lynn]

I think you should contact her. It's unfair to the rest of the people entering your giveaways. I would also tell her that she is disqualified so she stops entering.