Sometimes when you win, you lose

All too often these days, companies and individuals are being scammed. Sometimes these scams cleverly abuse our trust, sometimes the scam is an offer in the guise of an invoice that looks so real that even the most discerning customers pay these fake invoices, and sometimes these scams play into our vanity; a modern day devil tempting a contemporary Faustus. 

In the Netherlands,  young companies seem to be specifically targeted. Hague Handbags already received an offer to appear in a television show, for example. The fine print made it clear that it was nothing but an offer to shoot a commercial at Eur 400.00 per second of material.

An offer that did not come with any fine print was the invitation to click on a link to accept my nomination for some e-commerce award. I have yet to sell my first product on my website, so why on earth I would qualify, was a bit of a mystery. 

Even though it flattered my ego, I know that clicking on unknown links is not always the best of ideas, especially not for some vanity award. They way these awards work that at the end of some magic qualification process, you are sold some product, like seo, you never asked for in the first place. So winners beware: you have been warned. But so was Faustus.