I received a press release stating that a well-deserving fellow HIP received a very impressive national award. I did what any of us would do when a peer receives recognition – I looked for the website so I could spread the HIP’s amazing news far and wide. Unfortunately, instead of finding a website boasting about the winners, I stumbled upon press releases, posts, and COMPLAINTS registered at scam.com about the same company that awarded my peer her ‘prestigious award!’ This company is very well-known for contacting unsuspecting business owners with fake awards and plaques to purchase – there are business owners all over the country that have been swindled by the company. This is a pretty despicable way to do business and further research proved that this is not an isolated company.

Before publicizing any awards, perform these simple steps to avoid wasting time, emotion, resources, and your reputation:

1. Visit the organization’s website and look around for a bit. Do they appear legit? Are previous winners easily found? Are there ways to nominate others for future contests/awards?
2. Run a cursory Google search for the organization. Pay close attention to not only the first screen of search results, but also the second or third screen. Are there an unusual amount of complaints or red flags? Remember, with any organization that has been around for a while, there are bound to be a few negative comments.
3. Run a Google search: ‘______ (organization name) sucks’ – it is amazing the things that can be learned by running this search.
4. Visit snopes.com and scam.com and search for the organization. These are very reliable sites for weeding through bogus organizations.
5. If positive comments and posts highly outnumber negative posts…it sounds like you have won, been named, or earned a legitimate award! Good for you.
6. Don’t forget the most important part of winning an award: spread the news! It’s not everyday that we win an impressive award…but when we do, we need to shout it from the rooftops!