Scam Type
Vanity Award Scam
Business Name Used
Unavailable
Date Reported
September 05, 2023
Postal Code
None
Total Dollars Lost
$ 0
Scam Description
We received a website submission to our contact us form and will provide what they stated here: “I’m writing to you today on behalf of the Fishers Award Program. We’re the organization that puts on the annual “Best of Fishers Award”, and I’m pleased to inform you that your company has been selected as the winner in the category of Financial planner. I know we’ve tried to reach you a few times before, but we’ve finally been able to get in touch with you through your website contact form. We wanted to make sure you were aware of this exciting news as soon as possible. We’ve included a link to our website below that more fully describes your recognition. We hope you’ll look at it and share it with your staff. https://fishers.businesshonorlocal.com/S9485URB Congratulations again on this well-deserved honor! Sincerely, Stacey https://fishers.businesshonorlocal.com/s9485urb_MIDWEST-FINANCIAL-GROUP-INC”
Upon confirming their site was safe, I visited it but read that they wanted payment for the award which was an immediate red flag. They had you click on to claim, which I didn’t do, so I’m not sure the amount they were asking for but they absolutely were going to take money for a vanity award. With a quick internet search for any other winners of the “Fishers Award Program” I found other local companies have already taken the bait but there weren’t many of them and the domain is under 6 months old so it became extremely suspicious, and with a bit more digging into their “businesshonorlocal” component of their URL I was able to locate news articles regarding the BBB’s warning of vanity awards.
