The program
Somebody nominated my business
Then a neighbor typed your name into a ballot. Nobody here chose you, nobody sold you anything, and there is nothing to pay. This page is what is actually going on, including the parts that are worth being suspicious about.
How your name got there
My Town Vibe runs one awards round per county. Residents of that county put forward the places they would send a friend to, one nomination per category each. Your name is on the list because somebody who lives near you put it there.
The list they picked from is built from a public map of businesses, which is why a place can appear on a ballot before anybody has spoken to it. That is the honest reason, and it is also the reason a business sometimes appears with the wrong name or an old address.
What accepting does and does not do
Accepting confirms that a real person at the business knows this is happening and gives us an address to send the result to. It does not enter you into anything you were not already in, it does not cost anything, and it does not change your chances. Voting is done by residents and the count is the result.
You can also do nothing. A nomination stands whether or not anybody accepts it, and a business that never replies can still be named a finalist and can still win.
What we check, and what we do not
We do not verify that you own the business.
Anybody who has the link can accept a nomination and give us an email address. We have no way to tell an owner from a manager from a regular who thinks the place deserves it, and asking for documents to prove it would be a bigger imposition than the award is worth.
What that means in practice: if somebody accepted on your behalf and you would rather they had not, tell us and we will undo it. It is not a dispute and we will not ask you to prove anything.
- We do check that each resident nominates once per category, and that votes come from separate accounts.
- We do not check that a business is still open, still under the same owner, or still at the address the map has.
- We never take money to put a name on a ballot, to advance it, or to make it win. There is nothing to buy that changes a result, and nothing that does is for sale.
If you would rather not be listed
Say so and you come off. There is no form to argue your case and nobody will try to talk you round.
- On any page where your business is listed, the Not you? link beside the name reaches the same place.
- On the page a nomination email points at, the same offer is in the first paragraph.
- Or use the contact page, which is read by a person.
Coming off is permanent for that round, and we do not put a name back without being asked to.
Why any of this exists
Plenty of things that look like this are a mailing list with an invoice attached: an award nobody voted for, sold to whoever replies. The difference is not a promise, it is the mechanics, and they are public. Residents name the places. Residents vote. The count is the result. What a business can buy afterwards is a printed thing to hang on a wall, and buying it changes nothing about what was won.
More on the how it works page, and the questions page covers the rest.