Exposing the Fake Awards Scam

Nettyawards.com and Thenettyawards.com watch out messages coming from these two

A bunch of Indian scammers with flip-flops from Mumbai, Jaipur and Uttar Pradesh send unsolicited emails and filling out contact forms that your business has been “nominated” and you should act fast (the typical marketing principle of urgency) because they need to meet their deadline to “finalize the nominations/press coverage list”. The downside is this fake nomination has a $495 fee (the scammers can live for 2-3 months on that money).

Now if you’re smart enough and do a little digging you will find these are known scammers who are already blacklisted and I doubt the victims will ever get even a link after payment. They fake their identities by using pics and names of Caucasian ladies. For all I know, the imposters could very possible be males named Vikrahm, Ajay, or Sanjay.

Disclaimer: One might argue that those inboxes could be also legitimate inboxes from these websites hijacked from scammers, but that is too improbable. Website owners don’t leave their emails highjacked for 2-3 years and they reclaim the domain and mail servers. They would also have tried to restore the domain reputation against the reviewers’ posting and exposing the scam.
Plus, if this was legit the business wouldn’t ask the exact amount of a listing, as ridiculously high as $495. They would ask something less and via private communication e.g. Skype, Telegram. And the most compelling argument, why should anyone pay for a listing on a fake awards website? Awards are always free. The only fee you pay is a membership in just a handful of cases. There’s no fee or charge to get a niche award. It’s too dumb of a scam.
All findings lead to the conclusion that those scams are communicated via the website’s mail server using nettyawards.com domain emails.
I seriously doubt whether the victims can get a listing after payment. If that was the case there should be some historical listings on the website, e.g. 2023/4/5 Nominations etc.
If it sounds like a scam and it looks like a scam, then it is a scam.

Scammer IPs and locations listed here:

https://cleantalk.org/blacklists/zoe.adler@nettyawards.com

https://cleantalk.org/blacklists/sarah.levine@thenettyawards.com

https://cleantalk.org/blacklists/eva.cohen@nettyawards.com

This guy has written an article about their scheme

Don’t fall for it.