Fake news or deliberate deception

I had a strange encounter on 4 Jan when APAC Insider emailed me with notification of a prize win. I had seen emails from them earlier and had noticed activity on this blog through the back-end where the interface shows visits. The following image came with the email.

I replied accepting the award then told the man behind the email address that I'd take the basic package, immediately getting on Facebook to spred the word. I was sincerely pleased but an online friend immediately commented that it was a scam.

I got back to the staffer and said I wanted to pull out and he made some excuses adding that the blogpost I had linked to, and that my friend told me about, was from 2016. He noted that there was a "free' option for award recipients to choose if they wanted. He then said that he would go ahead to pull the award unless I had anything else to add. At this point I didn't know what to think but I asked about which other local community art groups had been considered when APAC Insider was deciding to whom the award should go.

In any case it was too late, the bird had flown, I had hardly heard the bird's wings it flitted in one window and immediately left through the door.