Is bankrupt competitions boss behind new scheme?

When Ami Shuttleworth and her fiance Chris Smith were told they had won £10,000 successful a pay-to-enter competition, they instantly knew however they would walk their prize.

"We were implicit the moon, our wedding was going to beryllium paid off," recalls the 34-year-old mother-of-one from Middlesbrough.

Mel Higgins, 33, besides had large plans for the £5,000 she was told she had won.

"I was going to wage disconnected my recognition paper and immoderate was near I was going to enactment into my business," says the driving advisor from Chippenham.

"I cried my eyes retired due to the fact that I thought, 'this is going to alteration my life'."

Yet, similar galore others who were palmy playing with Level Up Giveaways, neither of them received a penny of their winnings.

The firm, based successful Sowerby Bridge successful West Yorkshire, was coiled up astatine the High Court successful August 2025 implicit unpaid debts, with its sole director, Anton Hall, besides made bankrupt in November 2025 as portion of abstracted proceedings.

The BBC understands the institution owed tens of thousands successful unpaid prizes to its customers earlier it stopped trading.

Admin adjunct Ami says she "saw red" erstwhile she recovered retired 37-year-old Hall is present progressive successful a caller prize draws venture.

"Like a batch of radical I'm conscionable angry," she adds.

For Mel, "it conscionable feels wrong".

Running a business, either straight oregon indirectly, would breach the presumption of Hall's bankruptcy bid and represent a transgression offence.

Hall, who according to tribunal documents is present surviving successful York, told the BBC: "I haven't acceptable up oregon owned a constricted company, and I'm not a manager of, oregon managing, a constricted company.

"The competitions I hosted person been tally personally done the Raffall platform."

Raffall is an autarkic website which allows radical to big their ain competitions.

Sometimes referred to arsenic prize draws oregon pay-to-enter competitions, these enterprises enactment by selling a acceptable fig of entries to a draw, often for a currency prize.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has described prize draws and competitions arsenic a "significant and increasing market".