Yesterday we received an email from Dan A. of BUILD Magazine (build-review.com, previously build-news.com) congratulating us on our winning of one of their awards. It came out of the blue, he admits, and it was an interesting surprise for us, because it made some unwarranted assumptions about us and our business.
What AI Global Media should bear in mind is that, among other legal characteristics, a statement must be false in order for it to be considered defamation, which clearly is not the case here: we have actually received a number of awards from them without merit and then invited to pay for trophies, as we have proved below.
The fact that they requested Google to remove our legitimate article (and others) from search results does more to confirm than infirm our conclusion that they are conducting their business in a way that can be considered unethical.
So, short answer: we can’t tell if the BUILD Magazine Awards are a scam, but we received an award for invented reasons and we were invited to pay up to £2,595 (why that fiver?) to advertise the winning in their magazine. BUILD Magazine is one of the magazines owned by AI Global Media which offer such awards. Please read below.
1. We’re defining the world
He starts by saying that their research team (a vague term, meaning no recognised authority) has put House Extension Designs forward as a winner in their Defining the World, 2016 awards.
He goes with making an appeal to the importance of having a good public reputation using a what it looks like a classic FUD (Fear, uncertainty and doubt) argument, basically a disinformation strategy used in (but certainly not limited to) sales, marketing and politics meant to emphasise the negative aspects (or make false claims) about a situation or argument and appeal to fear in order to convince people to do or not to do something. In our case, is arguing that since reputation is an important aspect of this sector – no reputation, no clients, no money and this sector is taking hits (as we know, he reminds us) – if we haven’t already, we may take such a hit any time now, we deserve a prize for pulling through.
This award, therefore, is for our work over the last 5 years that have really made an impact on the industry.
Seriously? An impact on the industry?
Well, that’s nice. We have certainly worked our elbows off and made an impact somewhere along the way, but we’re not nearly there in terms of how much we influenced the industry. And, what’s funnier, we didn’t even try to do that. Our niche is rather well defined, we work with a fine architect who knows her thing very well and delivers like the pro she is.
2. We’ve had a spectacular journey
Dan of BUILD Magazine continues, he says that their in-house awards are administered by their dedicated research team who’s put a lot of work into creating some well documented lists of companies like us who did a great job and now they wanted to shine the light on the most respected firms out there in this industry.
House Extension Designs London has had a spectacular and impressive journey, and has defined a pathway for future firms to follow and become successful. As rightful leader in your practice, our readers are keen to hear about the top firms around the globe in this industry. We want to present House Extension Designs London in our publication and showcase your services, missions and achievements on a global level.
See, this is how we know that if it’s not a scam it is at least a poorly planned strategy for BUILD Magazine to make money and not actually bring value to their readers and to the architecture and construction markets by helping everybody determine why House Extension Designs is worth their time and money. We wouldn’t want to pay a subscription to a magazine that gives away awards to random companies they find online, as if they know what’s happening with those entities, how well they perform in terms of the quality of their work.
It’s true, our journey so far has been impressive, but only for us. The market barely knows about us – and if it does, it because of the guys we hired to do the SEO and keep an eye on our web results, our clients are mostly home-owners, we haven’t created any ground breaking architectural models and designs, we surely haven’t defined a pathway for future firms to follow and become successful. We’re a small fish in a large, highly competitive ocean. We are not a leader in our practice as much as we’d love to be. And BUILD Magazine’s readers don’t want to know about us, unless we’re going to bring something new to their tables.
(Which we believe we do. We work at lower prices than the market average simply because we can afford it. For now, at least. But that’s a different story.)
3. Winning prizes costs us money
The delusion of grandeur and prize winning for doing a job well isn’t our thing. We’re set on drawing house extension designs and we work with various building companies and engineers to implement those designs, we try to be good at it and so far we’ve done a fine job, but that’s all we do for now.
We usually work with home owners, many of which are not happy to share pictures of their private houses online and we didn’t do much to convince them either. There’s very little chance that entities such as BUILD Magazine would know how well we did and what impact we actually had in the past 5 years unless they spoke with our clients.
What they did with this message is called fishing in our books, they’re sending this sort of emails to many companies and hope some will take on their not-quite-earned awards and pay for the announcement.
They are hoping to create value where there is little or none by claiming they know what they’re talking about when, as a matter of fact, they really don’t know how and where we stand within the industry. Just like CIO Magazine does. Just like companies like Gartner do in a way, by positioning themselves in a place where they make bold judgements and market predictions that turn out to be wrong and charge many willing companies along the way, either to be included as a recommended solution for a problem (albeit indirectly – and they sure make a big case of that) or to offer consultations on how to deal with various problems. Other analysts are just as good. It’s a business model that we don’t want to encourage. Educated guesses are still guesses and the profit margins for guessing should be adjusted to reality.
They also hope we’d give in to our ego-driven rationale, that we are in fact good (which it’s true, people) and that we do deserve recognition for our hard work, so we might as well take the award and pay them up to £2,595 (cheaper options exist as well) to announce it in their magazine. Like many companies did in 2015 for one of their awards, here: build-news.com/2015-architecture . So many that being or not included there wouldn’t make much difference anyway.
No, thank you. We’re good for now. Us being so incredible and all means we’d probably agree if they’d offer us £500 / year to place an advertisement banner to a real product, their magazine that is.
4. Vanity awards
This scheme is called a vanity award scheme and it’s considered a form of scam by some organisations, like the Better Business Bureau, who has been issuing warnings against it for some time now. Read more on the entrepreneur.com and Wikipedia.
- 20-12-2016: Edited the name of the person who emailed us, for privacy reasons.
- 05-04-2017: Added links on headings, reformulated some phrases, added summary and the yellow text box.
- 07-06-2017: Added the green box, where we mention that AI Global Media has unsuccessfully attempted to remove this article from Google search restults.
I had a very similar reaction when my employer also won the Defining the World, 2016 award. I wanted to be flattered, but I just could not believe that a four man plumbing operation in Minnesota impressed a group of experts in London.
We do an excellent job for a fair price. We are super busy even though we never spend a penny on advertising. (There is a connection between those sentences.) But we are not, by any definition, defining the world.
Rather than forking over thousands of pounds to Build Magazine so they can improve my reputation, I think I will pay my vendors and maintain my current reputation.
And there was me thinking we’d won it?
Surprise surprise, we have received TWO nominations for two different awards in one week! Funny enough both companies are based at the same address and share the same phone number – BUILD Magazine and Middle Market Monthly.
One nomination I could believe but this was a bit of a farce. Funny enough, when questioned on the phone, the troubled lady from Build Magazine didn’t have anything clever to say about the other company…. Avoid and focus on respected and well-known awards!
Oh, that’s a ridiculous amount of money for an award! It is quite appalling that there are people in the architecture industry who exist to do that sort of thing.
I know it is a scam, they have just emailed me to say they have surplus stocks of the award and we can have it for the bargain basement price of £200 plus VAT!!!!
That Dan Armshaw keeps sending us email that reminding us that we won an award and our so called certificate is sitting at his desk for a very long time.
He also insisting that we’re a boring/tunneling company. I just want to laugh so hard.
Dan, if you’re reading this, if you’re reading this message, make sure that your “researchers” know what they’re researching.
It extends to the cleaning industry as well. We have just won their award for Office Cleaners of the year – North England. Which would have been fine but we are based in the south !
But I will still be advertising to new client enquiries that we won the award (will just leave out the North bit)
My firm has nothing to do with house building…but we apparently won too. Full on scam.
My company just won the “Technology Firm of the Year” and is the “exclusive winner from the USA”. “the standout firms in their class, judging on growth, innovation, client ROI and more.” Too bad it’s been mothballed since 2008 and isn’t currently in operation.
We’ve won in prior sessions as well. I actually proceeded all the way through using their free option on one award, thinking maybe I could scam the scammers. I was so hoping we would be mentioned in their magazine, for free, as a the best sustainable architecture firm in the Washington. Once the magazine was put out I saw now mention of us. Turns out they have a separate awards issue, with only the winners who offered to pay included, and no other industry stories, editorials etc. I dont even know who receives this “special issue” other than the winners. The online edition was only firm profiles on those that paid. I dont understand the value of buying terrible publicity, or buying a rather fake trophy. I too was flattered and hopeful. I hope Daniel [Edited], Hanna [Edited], and Kaven [Edited] are ashamed of their company and its scam.
Looks like they are at it again. Again this year we have won, again. Our business is in Oman and Dubai. Infrastructure Awards – Best Infrastructure Project Management Consultancy & Recognized Leaders in Construction & Engineering Dispute Resolutions. Though, to be fair we are one of a VERY small handful of businesses that are in this line of business. The cost for us to accept this is £195 + £ 15 shipping. How did this company in the UK find us, and how was or is the evaluation done – there is no mention of our company or any other company on their website – I find this very unusual. We have hosted award ceremonies ‘The big project awards’ in Dubai but we never charged people to accept their trophies and the previous winners are all named on the official website of the ‘big project awards’ website.
Just won the Technology company of the year award from BUILD, to add to my recently acquired ‘Technology Development and Consultancy of the Year’ from both TMT News and Acquisition International. It’s been a hell of a year. They’ve clearly done their homework too, since we’re extremely niche and work on Government projects – broadcasting no details whatsoever. Cobblers.
You can’t have won those, Paul. Cos I’ve won them. I don’t want to give too much away, but the £2,995+VAT fee seems absurdly cheap considering all the gr8 coverage we’ll get. That we have to pay postage and packing on top if we want to receive our IMPRESSIVE CRYSTAL TROPHY only seems fair. I don’t suppose those things shift themselves.
It is a sad reality that many organisations have fell into the trap of paying for their advertisements which are essentially pointless. It’s a mere marketing ploy, but with a different approach to try and convince you that you have won a “sought-after” award (despite many of these “awards” never been run before). It’s a complete SCAM! As many on here have mentioned, if you don’t pursue with paying (despite being told all winners get a free press release) there is no mention of your company anywhere in the publication. It’s also interesting that they don’t boast their circulation anywhere, because I should imagine it’s extremely small; this magazine is not legit, recognised or respected in the industry whatsoever.
Just over 110,00 apparently, – according to DANIEL H[edited] who attempted to relieve me of £495.
We just got nominated by Acquisition International or International Acquisition for world business leader. Sadly we are a niche television network with no more than 100 employees and are a non-for profit. There were a lot of type o’s in the email as well.
Oh no, I’ve won (or have I) two awards this year. Will not be coughing up for those awards, editorial, etc.
Wow! Glad I Google’d these awards…considered submitting an entry but sounds like we’ll get shortlisted without (just like the rest of the country!)
Dan H. [edited] from BUILD contacted me to say that I had made the Top 50, but I’d have to pay 395 sterling for advertising!
FLATTERED! The awards team have named me UK’s winner in the Engineering Excellence Award category, – who wouldn’t be flattered!? So I get a complimentary winner’s certificate and full copyright to the award logo, free! So, what is “BUILD”? – well apparently it is distributed to just over110,000 subscribers, – executives, directors, technical managers, etc in the construction , engineering, architecture and design sectors, – and for £495 I can have a full 2-page spread, a full-page ad in an issue of my choice, and a personalised crystal trophy & digital logo! Nice!- I wonder just how much they know about my one-man band that specialises in a particular field of vintage aircraft restoration!? Thank you DANIEL H[edited], – not interested, – BBC’s “Watchdog” might be!!
I received a message from TMT News last year, which, as I found out, is owned by the same company that owns Build News. This “newspaper” is owned by Ai Global Media. If you do a quick online research about Ai Global Media you’ll learn that they have a number of such magazines which graciously offer awards in exchange for money. I really can’t say much about the “methodology” they use to establish which companies truly deserve an award since such methodology is not public (I may be wrong, I just couldn’t find anything clear) and, therefore, can’t be trusted as far as I’m concerned.
It is, as the author mentioned, a vanity award scheme. If fact, if you go to Wikipedia and look for this vanity award scheme, you will find Ai Global Media mentioned there, as it’s a known business model and it can be profitable if few or no people speak about it.
It’s a pity, in my humble opinion, that we encouraged this sort of business model to thrive, but I guess we can only blame those who actually pay for those awards (and, my God, they are so many!) for trying to fool their clients that these awards are actually worth anything and they themselves are being praised for something.
I know I have no basis for not to believing your frustrations, but can any of you prove that you have actually received these emails (with email headers)? And if you can, would you be willing to post them on Pastebin.com (without any personal information regarding individuals) and link to them here or maybe by email?
Thanks.
Markus
I can. Please see the updated article during the course of the day.
Edit (10.05.2017): for convenience, here’s the article.
Thanks Leon, that’s perfect!
Hi Markus,
I’ve just received an email – and being the pessimist that I am, hopped on Google to investigate the legitimacy of these ‘Build Magazine Awards’. I’m happy to pop something on Pastebin and email the link to you.
Hi Rosie, I’d rather not put down my email address in public, but I would appreciate it if you could reply here with a link to the Pastebin copy-pasta. Thanks again!
Hi, I actually worked for them and know the whole scam if you are interested to know ?
Bogus awards with zero credibility
WOW!
These guys are really going the extra mile to remove unflattering comments and legitimate complaints about their activities online. This article and whole bunch of others have been submitted to Google to be removed from search results, claiming that they’re defamatory, as if complaining about a practice that may be considered unethical automatically means people are trying to damage their reputation: https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/13260993
I can only be happy that they haven’t removed it, because I was about to pay for one of the AI Global Media “awards”, but I decided to google about the company beforehand and I found this post and a few others.
Thanks for the find and the comment, DB! I can’t believe they did that.
I’ve been receiving a few of these lately.. My first impression is that as we’re in Australia, what use is an award to us in a magazine that is in the UK. All the details in his email sound dodgy to me.. judged by an internal panel (more like a spam bot set to hit as many email accounts as possible).
Hi.
Has anyone actually tried to purchase any of their packages? If so, has anyone actually received something after purchasing?
Many thanks.
Kind regards,
Ich habe 2019 Auszeichnung (in A4-Format) per Post bekommen. (Vorab per E-Mail angekündigt durch Herrn Kavin Cooper) Bezahlt habe ich aber nicht. Es gibt auch keinerlei Trophäe..
I would like to offer an award to all those who have taken the time to expose what I also believe to be a very questionable practice, and based on yet another email which I received this morning, they are still at it.
Yes I smelled a scam when they contacted me cos i’d also won an award- I told them to sling thier hook. But after googling my name (for other reasons), I was surprised to see it in a list of ‘top 50’ architects (I’m not even an architect) – grouped alongside other american and european contenders.
Well I suddenly realised that they must have spotted the unique brilliance of my work when viewing local authority planning databases. It didn’t take long to convince myself that my unique take on how to illustrate a plan view of a swinging door was just part of what gained me this critical attention and subsequent award.
https://issuu.com/aiglobalmedia/docs/build_april_2017_-_architecture_top/22
Daniel certainly is a busy boy! Being the recipient of multiple awards I would like to nominate Daniel for the Largest E[edited] Award 2000 – 2017 (translates to ‘Biggest P[edited] Award’ for our friends across the pond). Seems apt for someone who thinks we are collectively stupid enough to fall for his bull. Anyway got to run. I’ve just been asked to help a former African General transfer a gazillion £££ out of Africa! It’s totally legit and all I have to do is send some personal info including my bank details. Giles the former builder and now multi millionaire (once the African General transfers the dosh)
Admin edits: though we treasure the beauty of language in general – including foul language, we can’t publish certain expressions here due to the nature of this matter. Thanks for your understanding.
These guys are unbelievable, they send all kinds of spam without the possibility of unsubscribing. the comment that they posted here shows how evil and soulless they are.
I imagine these monsters are waking up every morning with an evil spark, trying to convince themselves that it is ok, it is the way of the world, if not us than others and so on.
Do you think they can be sued for spam or something?
Past employer. They generate large excel files of various business, invent fitting awards, then send mass mail mergers. If you don’t generate lots of sales you get the push overnight. Vanity award not worth a sheet of toilet paper.
On top of all this… they awarded us a prize for a project we competed in (in 2005) and lost.
This Award was issued in 2017. Probably not a scam, just an unethical way to make money from egocentric architecture and design firms.
We won the “Best in Green Building for the USA – 2017” … we manufacture Hot Water Circulation Systems.
I always look at the tiny print on things… I think his tiny print at the end of the email speaks volumes…
“Any views or opinions expressed are soley those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the company as a whole.”
So, it’s actually an award presented by Daniel Hornsby, company title “Head of Features (scams?) – Build Magazine
The email we received;
Hi, we received one of these from build-review.com — apparently they’ve changed the domain name and website title, but they kept the credo intact.
I’m surprised that in the age of internet there are companies who accept this sort of “awards”. Don’t they know that the risk of looking dodgy to their customers outweighs the benefits of appearing like they’ve actually received an award on merit when that’s an obvious misrepresentation of the truth?
Thank you for this article. I am sure it took you some time and effort to post it and keep it posted and It just saved me some time trying to figure out who this people are and why I got a “Nomination” in Brazil for the multinational company based in the US I work for.
The company is a leader in its industry and does not need to pay for any “Awards”.
its still happening in 2018…
Thank you for this. My company actually runs legit awards (we’re a service organization that certifies high-performance homes like ENERGY STAR and Net Zero in Ontario, Canada on behalf of groups like the federal government) and we actually HAVE been nominated for other groups’ awards, but like ours, most of those we had to at least attempt to pursue. So I wondered when we got this out of the blue… the non-specific language got my Spidey-sense tingling immediately!
Thankfully your article cleared that one up for me in seconds. :)
I’ve wrote an article to help get awareness out about this scam:
https://www.powermyhome.uk/pv-solar-panels/award-winning-solar-panel-enthusiasts
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[Admin note: the article is about the Sustainable Building Award, offered by Build Magazine.]
yeah, here we are… a wholesale company for wood…. we have won an award? For what? For developing a new kind of selling? Really? This is so lame, I cannot even laugh about it. Stop bothering me and take care of your damn own sh…!
We also received the same email saying we were shortlisted for an award we never even submitted to. No website is listed and the entire body of the email are links to pay them large sums of money. This is most definitely a scam.
Shocking.
It seems the AI Global Media only publish their magazines on issuu. They have 1266 magazines with 1267 folowers.
(basically means they folow their own magazines and have won 1 folower) –
You dont get any walue for you’r money, but at least it’s a good looking scam – must have hired a pro layouter)
I am so glad that you article is in fact still available on the internet. Remarkably we have just secured a Best for Industry Health and Safety UK award 2018. for a nice sum of £495.
We wont of course be taking up the offer as the awards we strive to secure are industry recognised where there is a formal judging process, otherwise they lack credibility
Thank you for this article. Just won one of these awards and couldn’t understand why…. now I see why!
If I had time I would play along, but too busy at the mo, but once again, well done on this article it will save a lot of people time and money!
Woo hoo – I’ve been nominated this year for the first time! They have got cleverer – my e-mail tells me that I have been “nominated” for the award and it is also for “lighting”. I wonder if they will be able to tell me who nominated me if I call to ask them?!!! I wonder if it will be something that the nominee prefers to keep anonymous perhaps! Thanks for this post – I almost got sucked in but my gut feeling told me that it wasn’t quite right and this came up close to the top of my Google search. You are doing a good thing here guys.
Wow, thanks for your article. So this shi* is still happening in 2018, almos 2019… I can’t believe it. And I’m so worried about making things right and being ultra honest in everything I do regarding business. Can we not do anything to sue this bastar*s? I hate [admin edited bad word] like this. We’re trying to set up our own little design and workshop furniture company, and it’s so hard, and the last thing we need is parasites like this making us believe even for a second, that the deal is true. Can we sue them collectively or something? Agh.
I received a similar email from the magazine for a 2018 peize, and I just have a portfolio website, no actual buildings or projects done in 2018! Such a scam.
We are a registered UK charity who provide removal services , looks like they haven’t done their homework, targeting charities could be there worst mistake i mean home building awards …… come on we move junk for the elderly and clear gardens to raise money for our food bank
middletoncommunitytrust.co.ukour food bank charity just got an award for house building ………. oh my is there any morals left with these hacks
We have also won an award for “Best Domestic Electrical Testing Company 2019”. How is that even a category?!
We may be, however they have done no research into our company at all or spoken with anyone at our company regarding this award.
We suspected a scam from the start, and having read your post above I now believe that it is. I was tempted to use the award for advertising/promotional purposes (without paying), but fear that it may harm our reputation to do so given that it has no merit to it.
Good News!!
I just found our nomination in the spam folder…… Thank you for the article!
If anyone wants to give us a legit award for 10 years in business and doing a grand job we’ll have that, for free of course!
And now it was our turn.
Out of nothing, only 2 years in business, in a nice market where we serve our clients with top quality, service and especially discretion, we won an award as well.
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So I decided to ask them for a phone call to discuss more on the options and this is what I got as an answer :
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I considered this for a while but reading all your comments confirms my first opinion that this is pure scam.
Many thanks for all the info.
Thanks for your article – it has just confirmed my vague suspicions about this being a scam, seconds before almost falling for it! We have recently done an architectural project which had received considerable mainstream media attention, so it sounded very plausible. Their research on their targets seems to be very good. I will be disseminating your info to alert more people.
The email I received today was from a M[etc] Cashmore. CASHMORE?? Priceless.
I replied that I found his/her name amusing, and that I would be blocking all future emails from them. I also suggested that if they were trying to flatter a business owner, they may want to work a little harder at getting the name of the company correct.
I guess this works, or they wouldn’t keep doing it…
Well here we are in Early 2019 and my Company has finally been nominated for an Infrastructure Award. Funnily enough we sell Equipment for Police, Fire and EMS in Canada and have nothing to do with infrastructure. I am somewhat disappointed as we have been in business or 30 years and this is our first nomination. Where have these people been?
Since these awards have absolutely no value or credence it only seems appropriate that we are up for one in a market we do not operate in. I will be happy to pay the top price just as soon as the former Minister of Finance from Cote d’ Ivoire sends me my inheritance.
I got a nomination today from them too! I wonder if they knew we are an antique shop. Sustainable, sure at a stretch. Green, sure antiques are preloved and preowned. Building, not so much.
What baffles me is that if you are a “winner” you must have competed. Some people in the UK from build magazine determine who is a winner? It should be simplified and say; those fools who pay for this bogus award with no credibility are “winners”.
What do you think of those people who accept and pay for these “awards”? Surely they know its a scam since they have never officially competed with anyone. Since they then put this “award” proudly on their website is an indication of how they too like to fool the readers.
It’s amazing what people do to deceive potential clients.
Well done for bringing this scam into the public domain. I feel a bit of a fool for initially believing the award, but then started to smell a rat as I read down and saw how much an award would cost us. Found it intriguing how these guys would be able to award us for work in the USA, given their base in the UK. Does the magazine even exist? I have never seen a copy. The sad thing is people must be paying, or they would not keep on doing it. At the second level of almost £500 a shot, they can rake in £50k from 100 award acceptances and I am pretty sure they will have plenty more titles aimed at different industries. Parasitic cretins!
We received “an architecture award” from them last week however their email sounded very “suspicious” to me so I started to do some research on them and I am glad I found this website.
There are other good architecture firms which accepted their awards, I don’t understand why they did it as it does not add credibility in my eyes, indeed it makes it worse. They started to send follow up emails, all template emails, nothing personal, asking for money. Someone needs to stop those guys!
The web is littered with these false beacons of credibility, deployed as an important infrastructure component of the online marketing economy and especially well-suited to aide dishonest businesses.
You will find these efforts anywhere from the book publishing industry who use adulterated bestseller lists, to the web development industry who use phony, pay-to-play awards organizations, to even the academic world which is awash with Potemkin peer-reviewed journals.
It’s a brave new world, and it makes you wonder how societies of the pre-internet era managed to exist without a preponderance of dishonest practices.
Mid 2019 and our tyre company has been nominated for an award in the ‘ever popular Construction & Engineering Awards. Initially launched in 2015, the Construction & Engineering Awards remains a key part of BUILD magazine’s awards programme portfolio. Incorporating a variation of enterprises across the construction and engineering disciplines who thrive in this dynamic sector, the awards engage in the process of honouring those whose work may span civil, commercial, energy, residential, industrial and infrastructure projects ‘. Apparently “receiving a nomination is a huge achievement and one you should be vastly proud of, it shows that your hard work and dedication to this ever-evolving industry has not gone unnoticed!”. WE SELL TYRES!!!!!! Dan seems to have changed his name to Jack W – Assistant Awards Executive at BUILD Magazine.
We received that very same one today from the same Jack W, Awards Executive (they give so many that it’s a full time job, apparently). It’s humorous that it was sent to me, a very random individual who would never be advised of such things. They do now include an unsubscribe link in their email, which keeps them “legal” as spammers in the US.
Now targeting the Real Estate industry. Email states that company has been put forward as a potential nominee and you have to click on either ACCEPT or DECLINE. NO WAY!! Also states that there is no cost in accepting the nomination, nor if you should go on to be successful.
I’m so happy I found this! An email from BUILD landed in our (seldom used) inbox today and looked sketchy enough that I decided to google them. Our company doesn’t even have anything to do with properties at all… and they had the gall to misspell our name as well.
Thank you for writing about this and sharing it!
Hmmm… Interesting information. We just won the award for “best children’s woodworking tools manufacturer – Europe”. I’d like to think we are the best in the world.
Glad I found this. I too have had an email from them saying I’ve been nominated (but not for what category) and asking if I wanted to proceed to their shortlist vetting. It claims there is no cost to being shortlisted (although it would appear that maybe there is one in winning!) I have replied but only to ask why an artist (and one that specialises in cats FFS!) would be nominated for a BUILD award and that it sounds like a scam.
Be interesting to see if they reply :D
Thanks for taking the trouble to write this article–came right up in google, saved us from the hassle of interacting with these scammers.
I received a variation on this from Corporate Vision, I’ll include the text in case anyone else is searching for these keywords:
I will say this is a quite creative and well-done scam. It appeals to egos, it’s a real company run by professionals in the UK (hence the perfect content and grammar) ,and at the end they do produce a real product. So it’s not on the level of a Nigerian prince scam, it’s more just a misleading vanity product that tries to sell you a marketing package at the end.
I quit reading about half way down the comments, so maybe someone already said this . Blows my mind that everyone keeps stating this is a “scam” to take advantage of businesses.
No it’s not. Anyone with a single brain cell can figure out these are not “legit” rewards. But companies can choose to pay the fee because it gives them something impressive to put on their website and showroom that sounds important.
No different than “best of Houzz”. That’s another “scam” but it helps companies get a lot of exposure so some choose to pay for it.
Thank you very much for this and for hosting the comments and replies. We operate in a very rarefied field and so immediately suspicious. I wish there was someway of stopping this scum, or taking their web site down.
You DO deserve an award for exposing this scam for us all.
Many thanks for your valuable analysis and comments.
It looked also to me as a scam since everything is offered “for free” and you always tend to expect where I should pay for…. Did not come to the end of the process, though.
I wish you all the best for your job and activities in London and around.
Best regards from Italy
Kaven C[edited] and Dan (mentioned above) have emailed us MULTIPLE times notifying us of our nomination in their Architecture Awards 2020. Research on past “winners” for each year on their site is rather funny in and of itself – Apparently everyone’s a winner – the list is quite literally endless, having to be sorted by each individual alphabet character and numerical number breakdown to cover all company names. “you’re a winner, and you’re a winner, and you’re a winner!” (I just picture Oprah Winfrey as their spokesperson… Definite laughable scam.
Still at it! Thanks for heads up everyone
To ensure they have a soft landing when it comes to prison time, perhaps they should consider “AWARDIN’ THE WARDEN AWARD” … “for taking good care of scamsters”
We are a Cost Consultancy / Quantity Surveyor and have also been nominated for a design award. We’ve had three emails so far wanting to put us forward for a nomination.
And they are still at it – I’ve apparently just won in the Architecture Awards 2023 category. Remarkable, considering I didn’t study for 7 years, and have never designed a whole building in my life!