Businesses like to have recognition of how well they are doing – awards can impress the staff, encourage customers to buy from them and help raise their profile to the public.

There are many genuine business awards but there is also a whole industry of ‘vanity’ awards where businesses pay for an award and the award givers treat this as Marketing and have no interest in whether a business is actually worthy of any kind of award.

One of the latest of these vanity awards is the ‘prestigious Certificate of European Quality Leader’.

Floods of emails encourage you to register your business for review and it can be for any product or service in any industry.

There is no fee to enter the competition but if you enter and win an award then there is a compulsory fee. By entering, you agree to pay the fees and I’m sure there will be a lot of winners as that’s how the organisers get paid.

According to their website, the fees per product win are: –

– from 0 to 3 employees is 1,800 euros

– from 4 to 10 employees is 2,200 euros

– from 11 to 50 employees is 2,900 euros

– from 51 to 70 employees is 3,300 euros

– more than 70 employees is 4,500 euros.

Genuine awards are worthwhile, but any that carry fees are clearly fake.

Plus, in this case, entering the competition means you have unknowingly agreed to pay extortionate costs if you win.

Scam!

If you have any experiences with vanity business awards – do let me know, by email.