Dream Car Giveaways
Introduction
Dream Car Giveaways is one of the most recognisable car competitions in the UK, and they’ve been around since 2018. They focus giving out cars and cash by running competitions, where you are able to purchase a ticket and enter by answering what is the capital of England.
Key Information
- URL: dreamcargiveaways.co.uk
- Organiser: DREAM CAR GIVEAWAYS LIMITED
- Type: Competitions & Prize Draws
- Prizes: Cash, Cars, Motorcycles, Other Prizes
Review Summary
Like with many of the top car and cash competitions in the UK, there are the some obvious issues with how the competition is set up and how it’s operated as either a prize competition or a free draw with a paid entry method (whilst only somewhat adhering to the Gambling Commission’s guidelines).
However, I was disappointed to find the lack of transparency in seeing the draw results (even the ones you’ve entered yourself), and the lack of winners shown or results shown on their website.
Finally, while Dream Car Giveaways does appear to do a free competition in an effort to promote their app (similar to 7days Performance) – this is only available for iPhone users and Android users are forced to download and install an .apk file manually.
Dream Car Giveaways scores a Real Score of 6.1 out of 10, meaning that I cannot recommend entering their competition. While their competition is legitimate in the sense of people do win, and that they’re a real competition – there’s still quite a bit of room for improvement in my personal opinion.
If by ‘legit’ we mean that do people win prizes that they play for, sure. But as many other competitions they still have lots of room for improvement in terms of legal compliance, and transparency. I highly recommend reading the review in full before you decide whether you should enter their car competitions / giveaways.
Most definitely. There’s enough of proof online, and they’ve been running the competition for long enough to prove it.
Here’s a fun fact: Did you know that a BOTB employee (now ex-employee) won Dream Car Giveaways a while back? And after happened, that everyone at BOTB were told off and were forbidden from entering other competitions? 🤣 (Not sure how enforceable that was though…)
Dream Car Giveaways Limited (11320154) is a limited company that is owned by MDM HOLDINGS (MIDLANDS) LTD (13879349).
Unfortunately, there is no way to tell for certain whether the Dream Car Giveaways app is safe or not. The iOS version should be as it’s available on the App Store (although this doesn’t still guarantee that an app is safe), however, as you are forced to download an .apk file to install the Android version of the Dream Car Giveaways’ app… I’d recommend that you don’t do this, nor should you download any other apps from outside the official app stores.
There is a time and a place for doing so, but mostly for developers or highly technical people, and if you need to ask the question whether the dream car giveaways app is safe… I’m going to guess this case doesn’t apply here. So, please don’t download and install the app. There are other competitions who have apps with free entry methods that you can get from the official app stores, like 7days Performance’s.
If you wish to learn more about how I’ve calculated the Real Score for Dream Car Giveaways, please see the below sections!
Real Score
All necessary information is available as expected, and you are able to find the basic information about the competition in the FAQ section easily before entering. The competition is ran by DREAM CAR GIVEAWAYS LIMITED, which was incorporated in April 2018.
At first glance; it looks like Dream Car Giveaways’ winners can be easily found on the Winners page that can be found from the main navigation. However, it’s quickly clear that this is more of a promotional page, that only includes winners that they have gotten pictures of and this page does not include all the draws and winners of the said draws.
As an example, at the time of writing this review (more than half-way through January of 2025), there are only 5 winners shown on the page for January… What happened to the other winners? Note: This is not just about a delay from putting the winners up on the website, as there are only 14 winners in total shown for December 2024.
The fact that you can search for the results from one of these pages, looks like there is some kind of transparency about the winners… However! I’ve just checked out the page of the Ford Focus RS competition which you can see below:
After clicking on “Search Entry List” …. I’m greeted with the below:
That’s not great.
So, if I’ve understood this correctly: You are only allowed to search for entries of the draws they choose to publish on their winners’ page… And even then only if their website works?
There is a mention to view your own orders for the entry lists for the competitions you’ve placed in the past, but these only show your own ticket number and no other information…
So, I am not even able to check who won the competitions that I’ve entered?
Finally, if you go a month or so back and look at some of the winner’s results pages… The “Search Entry” list isn’t even available on all results!
While cherry picking which winners to show for promotional purposes, and not allowing players to check results on the website doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s something shady going on; it’s safe to say that there’s some room for improvement here in terms of transparency, consistency, and user experience.
The process seems very similar to the majority of the competitions. Dream Car Giveaways do the draws live on Facebook, and you are able to see how the winners are selected:
The ticket number is chosen at random by using Google’s own random number generator. So in terms of how the random selection is done – it’s first of all less entertaining in comparison to the lottery machines used by 7days Performance and Rev Comps – but it’s also (in my personal opinion) less preferable over Random.org’s random number generator which uses atmospheric noise to give a more ‘natural random’ number. (TLDR: Computers can’t really come up with “random numbers” easily)
However, the above is really not an issue as there are a couple of elements to the randomness, one of them being assigned different ticket numbers. So all in all it’s ‘random enough’ and a very legitimate way of running a competition / draw.
You are also able to see some of the ticket numbers on the screen, as they do the draw and search for the winning ticket number:
Like many other competitions, Dream Car Giveaways is operating whilst pretending to be somewhat of a “free draw”, and a “prize competition”, due to the free entry method they offer, but also due to the question they ask before you can buy a ticket.
However, and as discussed on multiple occasions on this website… These competitions rarely adhere to the rules set by Gambling Commission properly, and Dream Car Giveaways is no exception.
Firstly, asking (and answering) what is the capital of England for the thousandth time does not make the game a “skill based game” like BOTB’s spot the ball. Much like Rev Comps, Dream Car Giveaways seems to operate in the same exact way.
Secondly, while having a free postal entry method isn’t a great free entry method in the first place, it’s incredibly well hidden on the page – please see below… The “see here” link that is in small and grey-ish text leads you to another page that has the details about the postal entry. At least Rev Comps’ “terms” word was in red, so it’s clear that it’s a link… Even if it wasn’t clear that what it was a link to.
As Dream Car Giveaways has been running for a long time, they have a good track record, in terms that they most definitely are legitimate company, giving out prizes to winners… As there’s no way you could get away with scamming people for this long.
However, as it’s incredibly hard to figure out the previous winners, this track record is somewhat tainted. As mentioned in the “Previous Winners” section, you are not able to check all the winners like you are able to with some other competitions.
The prizes on Dream Car Giveaways are always decent. They always seem to have a few different prizes with decent cash alternatives to choose from, and more often than not there is one “main prize” similar to 7days Performance where you have 2 cars as the prize, or a life-changing amount of cash.
As an example, at the time of writing this review the cash alternative on their main prize is a whopping £290,000!
The odds are very similar to other competitions, when adjusted for how much you are able to win, how much the tickets cost, and how many entries there are.
Thanks to the ticket prices, the cost of entering Dream Car Giveaways is on lower end when comparing to other competitions. While they have some competitions where the ticket prices are higher, the amount of entries is usually well taken into account for this to keep the value roughly the same when entering.
Dream Car Giveaways does have a ‘Charity’ section on their websites, and at the time of writing this review they’ve raised more than £100,000 to good causes. And unlike Good Life Plus, the charitable causes they have chosen are genuinely good. However, the amount raised for charity is less than fifth of the sum that Rev Comps has raised to charity! And Rev Comps was incorporated in 2019 whereas Dream Car Giveaways was in 2018… So, while they do some good and there’s no denying that, they could also do quite a bit more like some of their competitors do.
In the bonus section for Dream Car Giveaways I’d like to focus on the free entry method they offer.
While the competition appears to be ran in a fairly legitimate way, one part that sets them apart is the fact that in order to be able to enter to their free competition (in a similar fashion as 7days Performance does), you need to use their app. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this on its own. However, if you are using an Android device you are forced to download an .apk file outside of Google Play store – which is not advisable, nor is it safe to do.
They’ve even set up an FAQ section to answer the worries about this:
The most probable explanation is, that they are banned from Google Play store – and they need to offer their app outside this platform. BOTB used to be banned from Google Play store as well in the past (or first get approved, then not, then approved, then not), so this is not that uncommon.
No matter what the reasoning behind this is… It still means that you are downloading a potentially harmful file to your phone – and there are no guarantees as to what’s included in the .apk file as you install it and give it permissions to work. “Trust us, it’s fine” isn’t a valid enough reason for me to download an app, even if I’d really want to enter their free competitions myself.
And if you’re not technical in the slightest, here’s just my take on downloading random .apk (Android Kit Package) files on the internet: Just don’t.
Now… Would Dream Car Giveaways pay an app developer for an app to do something harmful? Of course not (I’d hope)! However, I highly doubt they’ve made the full app themselves, nor can they guarantee what’s included in the app and every line of code that’s included in the app. Here’s a question for you, or food for thought: Why does 7days Performance have their app available on the Google Play Store, and Dream Car Giveaways doesn’t?
Notes
I’ll have to point out; that when I writing this review, I was surprised to find the obvious sticking points with the lack of transparency with the winners. I’m sure they can do a lot better, if they wanted to. For such a well-established and legit competition to not be transparent about who’s won each and every competition, is quite strange. Maybe they’re big enough and successful enough that they don’t have to care about these things?
I will personally still play (probably) the odd few tickets here and there, but I’ve certainly been put off a bit by not being able to see who’s won each of the draws.
Recommended Reviews
Frequently Asked Questions
If by ‘legit’ we mean that do people win prizes that they play for, sure. But as many other competitions they still have lots of room for improvement in terms of legal compliance, and transparency. I highly recommend reading the review in full before you decide whether you should enter their car competitions / giveaways.
Most definitely. There’s enough of proof online, and they’ve been running the competition for long enough to prove it.
Here’s a fun fact: Did you know that a BOTB employee (now ex-employee) won Dream Car Giveaways a while back? And after happened, that everyone at BOTB were told off and were forbidden from entering other competitions? 🤣 (Not sure how enforceable that was though…)
DREAM CAR GIVEAWAYS LIMITED (11320154) is a limited company that is owned by MDM HOLDINGS (MIDLANDS) LTD (13879349), which a holding company owned by the same people who run the subsidiary: Michael and David Andrews, and Martin and Marcus Hickling.
It’s quite interesting to see that for such a relatively small operation, there’s a ‘need’ for a holding company & a subsidiary. This is usually done by larger corporations to avoid liabilities altogether or to reduce risk, and so on. In contrast, none of the other competitions I’ve reviewed so far have been set up in this way.
Three of the above are also listed as directors for a company called CHECKETTS PROPERTY LIMITED (12217364), which may or may not be linked to this venture. Some speculation: The most likely reason for this third company is, that the third company owns the building they’re based in. This would be so that they can pay their own rent or lease to themselves effectively, whilst making income for one company and being a tax-write off for the other. Which would be of course, fair play and perfectly legal.
Unfortunately, there is no way to tell for certain whether the Dream Car Giveaways app is safe or not. The iOS version should be as it’s available on the App Store (although this doesn’t still guarantee that an app is safe), however, as you are forced to download an .apk file to install the Android version of the Dream Car Giveaways’ app… I’d recommend that you don’t do this, nor should you download any other apps from outside the official app stores.
There is a time and a place for doing so, but mostly for developers or highly technical people, and if you need to ask the question whether the dream car giveaways app is safe… I’m going to guess this case doesn’t apply here. So, please don’t download and install the app. There are other competitions who have apps with free entry methods that you can get from the official app stores, such as 7days Performance’s.
Dream Car Giveaways are based in Pershore, Worcestershire.
Full Address is:
Unit 2, Varden Road, Keytec East, Pershore, WR10 2JQ
The registered address on Companies House (in Droitwich) is the accountants’.
The Watch Grab
