Enticing Award, but Meaningless

Ever been swindled? Watch! This will amaze you. Your company receives an invitation through mail to an awards ceremony at a prestigious setting in some distant country. Your company is offered a luxury celebration of fame as you attend and all you have to do is to pay € 3,700 or more. But wait! Does one have to pay for an award? The said amount includes accommodation for two nights, and just one room on arrival excluding flight tickets.

Wondering why the Above? It is simple, it is SCAM. Business Initiative Directions (BID), a company giving out awards to a lot of companies across the globe with  its founder, Jose E. Prieto.

The award ceremonies are attended by companies from different countries, together with leaders of many business sectors (according to their website), and are covered by journalists and photographers to appear in publications. Usually, London, New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid and Geneva are the chosen setting the event (International Convention) takes place with their idea of projecting awarding companies’ names in the international business world with the Award.

The awards are presented in the Gold, Platinum, Diamond category and in the Criteria of:

• Excellence in Leadership and Business Management
• Quality and Excellence
• Business and Brand name Prestige
• Technology, Innovation and Projection

Although this appears to be convincing, the award is meaningless and not recognized. Numerous publications and comments supporting this shows that this is all fake, a scam!

The Guyana Chronicle online with a publication dated October 10, 2013 written by Mahadeo Panchu reveals that an anti-government local businessman collected an award from BID in Geneva, Switzerland and was asked to pay about €5,000 to take part.

Another publication in Consumer Watchdog Blog dated September 17, 2010 shows an invitation from BID to a company (name withheld) to attend their world congress in Paris, France. According to the writer, his company has not been in operation since the year 2003 and what he found suspicious was the payment of €3700 for participation costs.

Furthermore, according to the publication, the said amount includes accommodation in a hotel excluding flights to Paris for two nights but only one room, later to reveal that the cost of the room was only €560 and also a lapel pin is provided in addition to the award itself with some photographs. What’s more was the question asked by the writer; how can you have won an award in 2010 when your company hasn’t traded since 2003? A company that hasn’t traded since 2003 has passed this rigorous voting system? This really is nonsense, isn’t it?

Comments from this publication were as follows:

Anonymous said… (3 May 2011 at 11:19)
My company, in Laos, just got the invitation to the International Quality Summit Award by Business Initiative Directions in New York for 31 May 2011. We are asked to pay 3800 euro for participation.
Thank you for all information posting here.

Anonymous said… (9 April 2012 at 09:26)
Our company in Ethiopia received an invitation in the mail to come to New York in May 2012 to receive an “International Quality Summit Award.” It’s the exact same thing described here, with the same look. They have changed the name and logo, but everything else is exactly the same. It is the identical scammers. Please everyone; do not fall for this trick.

Anonymous said… (26 April 2012 at 10:07)
The same happened with my company in Mozambique. 4.000usd was the price to collect the prize. Lot of companies and universities are being victimized by this scam. Watch out!

Anonymous said… (21 May 2012 at 10:18)
My company is in Russia and we have just received an e-mail about this “award”. Thank you very much for your post.

Anonymous said… (7 August 2013 at 17:31)
We have just received a similar invitation to receive the so-called “International Quality Crown (IQC) Award” …Business Initiative Directions (B.I.D.) apparently holds an annual congress with S international meetings at multiple sites – during that time , participating leaders and experts in quality and excellence submitted their vote for the candidacy of my business in South Africa!!! All I need to do is pay 3,900.00 Euro to collect my certificate in London from people that I have never heard of. Very clever and convincing – but no thanks! You failed to convince me!

Now this same Business Initiative Directions (BID) has paved it way into Ghana giving the same awards to companies. These awards have been published in the dailies and other prominent media. Unfortunately these awarded companies; I guess are unaware of whom and what they actually are. Sadly, no legal action can be held against this company. This is because they are registered as a company giving awards to other companies.

It is best we probe deeper into issues pertaining to this to help save other companies from these meaningless awards and also be an eye opener to all.