We were so honored and on top of the world when we received a Houzz Customer Service Award, not once, not twice, but FOUR years in a row. Wow, we must be amazing!! But, when the fourth one came in, we started to wonder… how legit is this? I do not want to take the honor away from many designers who surely deserve it, but the Houzz awards are a scam (and the reason we have removed them from the honors portion of our page).

You see, anyone who gets reviews in a year on Houzz automatically gets a customer service award. That’s it. Not only that, but Houzz treats people, particularly designers very poorly. Those badges they give us as an “award” actually pulls internet traffic away from our websites and to theirs instead. It is filled with code that directs consumers to them, where they take rights to photography without consent, and use designers’ work to tell their cheap knock offs. Read more about that on my colleague, Laurel Bern’s blog.

So, when you look for an award that a designer has received, remember that it may only mean that they paid for it (yes, there are companies that offer awards for a fee- I know, I’ve turned them down) or that it’s a scam they are not aware of. There are absolutely also valid awards! I am proud to own two of them. The best award I can get though, is this: