{"id":772065,"date":"2026-09-16T02:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T02:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/772065\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T02:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T02:56:09","slug":"is-bankrupt-level-up-giveaways-boss-anton-hall-behind-new-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/772065\/","title":{"rendered":"Is bankrupt Level Up Giveaways boss Anton Hall behind new scheme?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Ami Shuttleworth and her fiance Chris Smith were told they had won \u00a310,000 in a pay-to-enter competition, they immediately knew how they would spend their prize.<\/p>\n

“We were over the moon, our wedding was going to be paid off,” recalls the 34-year-old mother-of-one from Middlesbrough.<\/p>\n

Mel Higgins, 33, also had big plans for the \u00a35,000 she was told she had won.<\/p>\n

“I was going to pay off my credit card and whatever was left I was going to put into my business,” says the driving consultant from Chippenham.<\/p>\n

“I cried my eyes out because I thought, ‘this is going to change my life’.”<\/p>\n

Yet, like many others who were successful playing with Level Up Giveaways, neither of them received a penny of their winnings.<\/p>\n

The firm, based in Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire, was wound up at the High Court in August 2025 over unpaid debts, with its sole director, Anton Hall, also made bankrupt in November 2025 as part of separate proceedings.<\/p>\n

The BBC understands the company owed tens of thousands in unpaid prizes<\/a> to its customers before it stopped trading.<\/p>\n

Admin assistant Ami says she “saw red” when she found out 37-year-old Hall is now involved in a new prize draws venture.<\/p>\n

“Like a lot of people I’m just angry,” she adds.<\/p>\n

For Mel, “it just feels wrong”.<\/p>\n

Running a business, either directly or indirectly, would breach the terms of Hall’s bankruptcy order and constitute a criminal offence.<\/p>\n

Hall, who according to court documents is now living in York, told the BBC: “I haven’t set up or owned a limited company, and I’m not a director of, or managing, a limited company.<\/p>\n

“The competitions I hosted have been run personally through the Raffall platform.”<\/p>\n

Raffall is an independent website which allows people to host their own competitions.<\/p>\n

Sometimes referred to as prize draws or pay-to-enter competitions, these enterprises work by selling a set number of entries to a draw, often for a cash prize.<\/p>\n

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has described prize draws and competitions as a “significant and growing market”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Ami Shuttleworth and her fiance Chris Smith were told they had won \u00a310,000 in a pay-to-enter competition,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-772065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}