Do Credit Union staff win 30% of the cars in prize draws?

Is this that hard to understand?


"In approximately 30% of credit unions who operate prize draws, staff and directors have won prizes over the period
October 2014 to March 2017."

The Irish Times has still not corrected its headline

https://www.irishtimes.com/business...-prizes-in-30-of-credit-union-draws-1.3419808

The copy is not as bad - but it is still not right.

A Central Bank review of credit unions has found that, in roughly 30 per cent of those that operated prize draws, staff and directors were the winners of those prizes.

There is no news here other than

"Central Bank finds no evidence of malpractice in Credit Union raffles"

Brendan
 
I know in my local one staff or directors can't enter the car draw but they can participate in the draw at the AGM. Basically it's just tickets handed out at the door and as most staff attend then you could have 30/40 or so of the 150 average attendance being staff. There are usually 10 prizes of €100 each so odds are good that some staff will win, tickets are drawn by audience and they are the basic books of paper tickets you'd buy anywhere so no chance of a fiddle.
 
This is sadly just another example of click-bait journalism, headlines generate clicks generate google ad revenue. The Story underneath the headline doesn't matter, rather pathetic really.
 
I find it really strange that credit union staff is actually allowed to participate. Every company I have worked with so far has always excluded staff (and often even extended to spouses and kids!) when running any public prize draws.
A simple way to avoid such headlines.
 
dereko1969 said:
This is sadly just another example of click-bait journalism, headlines generate clicks generate google ad revenue. The Story underneath the headline doesn't matter, rather pathetic really.
Click to expand...

To be fair, it probably had more to do with how the Central Bank reported it to the media. All the media carried the same angle. Not like they had journalists working on it. They were probably just reporting a press release from the Central Bank and didn't look into it. Surprised none of the papers thought the figure looked a bit mad but I guess that is modern journalism. Copy and paste for a lot of the stories.
 
I agree @Brendan Burgess but even the CBI report itself is slightly misleading.

When you read the detail, it's in 30% of CU's, staff have won a prize, plus 30% of directors (they were separate questions).
If it's not the same CUs in each case, we could be talking about up to 60% if we really wanted sensational headlines!
 
Sunny said:
To be fair, it probably had more to do with how the Central Bank reported it to the media.
Click to expand...

Sunny, I don't think that this from the CB is in any way unclear - granted you have to think about it for a few seconds.

"In approximately 30% of credit unions who operate prize draws, staff and directors have won prizes over the period
October 2014 to March 2017."

I am surprised that they all got it wrong. Does it suggest that there was some briefing from the Central Bank? I am told that there wasn't.

Brendan
 
figure is actually quite small and theorectically could be miniscule

46% hold draws
85% of them allow staff enter
30% of that figure, a staff member won a prize over a 2.5 year period

so in 12% of credit unions a staff member won a prize in a draw they entered at some stage over a 2 1/2 year period.

Most draws are monthly, so the figure could come down to the headline "Less than 0.5% of credit union staff win a prize draw prize"

But would anyone read such a story?
 
The 6 1 News Headline said that they won " a lot of the big prizes"

But there is no distinction in the Central Bank's report between small and large prizes.

Brendan
 
All shareholders of any particular credit union are members and these draws are for the members. Most staff and directors are members and as such would be entitled to be included in a draw. In my own CU you can choose to enter the draw or not each year, which costs a small amount to enter. I am surprised that these draws had no independent oversight in many cases, we have been looking at the Lotto on TV for years with the independent adjudicator.
 
Great to see a tax free bonus scheme type in operation for the staff and management and like most other bonus schemes is sponsored by the customers. And I believed all my credit union branch staff were volunteers working for free. Coincidentally, my nearby GAA club has a raffle for All Ireland Final tickets yearly and guess what? - the same people win every year. But, of course, the profit contributes to the under-age section.

Do Credit Unions and sporting clubs think they are the banks?
 
Leper said:
Great to see a tax free bonus scheme type in operation for the staff and management and like most other bonus schemes is sponsored by the customers.
Click to expand...

Did you actually read the thread?

There is nothing untoward here except perhaps in the reporting of the story.

Brendan
 
Of course there's nothing untoward. Please read my text. It is always the customer who pays for everything.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Staff and directors in 30% of 128 credit unions won prizes - so that would be 38 prizes in total (assuming only one win in each credit union.)

So the right summary would be c.1% of prizes were won by credit union staff and directors?
Click to expand...

Hi Brendan,

A lot of the figures mentioned in this thread are based on the assumption of one win for staff and directors in each Credit Union. Do we know that this is a reasonable assumption to make? It would also need to be checked whether these wins were distributed as expected between the bigger and smaller prizes.
 
llgon said:
A lot of the figures mentioned in this thread are based on the assumption of one win for staff and directors in each Credit Union.
Click to expand...

Hi ligon

I covered that here:

Brendan Burgess said:
So the right summary would be c.1% of prizes were won by credit union staff and directors?

All the draws are probably not monthly.
In some Credit Unions, the staff probably won more than once.
In 15% of Credit Unions, the staff were not allowed enter.
Click to expand...

The key point is that the suggestion that the staff won 30% of the prizes or 30% of the big prizes is unfounded.

Instead of winning 1 in 3, they probably won about 1 in 500.

There is nothing in the Central Bank survey to suggest anything untoward happened. There is no reason to believe in any widespread dishonesty, but of course, it may have happened in isolated cases such as Rush.

Brendan
 
Brendan Burgess said:
There is nothing in the Central Bank survey to suggest anything untoward happened.
Click to expand...

I disagree with this point. I think the suggestion is certainly there and there isn't enough information to show there wasn't anything untoward. The fact that staff and directors took part and the issue of independent scrutiny leave questions to be answered.

I fully agree that there is no evidence of wrongdoing and that the reporting has been extremely inaccurate.
 
Rush credit union spent a load of money on cars but there was no evidence of cars purchased
 
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