The real Baby of the Year contest, run by Colossal Management to benefit the charity Baby2Baby, is not a scam. What’s actually stealing money and photos from parents is everything built around it: fake vote sellers promising guaranteed wins, phishing emails congratulating a baby that was never entered, and modeling-agency pitches that turn a cute photo into a $500 invoice. Those copycats are the real threat here, and they’re a lot easier to fall for than the official contest itself.
Is the Baby of the Year Contest a Scam?
No, not the official one. BabyOfTheYear.org publishes its rules, names its operator (Colossal Management, LLC), lists past winners, and offers a real prize package for the 2026 competition, a $25,000 honorarium plus a photo shoot and promotional appearances tied to Baby2Baby and The Honest Company. No entry fee is required, and free daily votes exist alongside the paid donation-vote option that’s drawn most of the criticism online.
That’s the legitimate contest. It’s also not what most of the “is this a scam” searches are actually running into. The bigger risk sits in a separate layer of impersonators using the contest’s popularity to run their own schemes.
The Vote-Seller Scam
Somewhere in nearly every Baby of the Year voting cycle, a Facebook post or private message shows up offering “guaranteed votes” or a “vote package” for cash. These sellers have nothing to do with Colossal Management. The contest’s own support page states outright that outside services offering to sell or guarantee votes are fraudulent and unaffiliated with the competition.
Watch for these specific patterns:
- Guaranteed votes or guaranteed advancement in exchange for payment.
- Vote sales conducted through a private message or a Facebook group instead of the official site.
- Payment requested via gift card, cryptocurrency, Zelle, Cash App, or wire transfer, none of which the real contest uses for donation votes.
- A claim that a fee is required to release the $25,000 prize.
- Requests for a password, verification code, or banking login to “verify” a vote.
- A link to a domain that isn’t exactly BabyOfTheYear.org.
Real donation votes happen directly through the official site, in fixed dollar amounts, with a receipt. Anyone selling votes outside that system is taking your money for something they have no ability to deliver.
The Fake “Your Baby Was Selected” Email
This one doesn’t require you to have entered anything. Parents report getting a congratulatory email or message out of nowhere claiming their baby has been “chosen” or “nominated” for a prestigious contest, often mimicking the look of a modeling agency or a contest brand entirely separate from Colossal. The message is built to feel personal: it names the baby, references a photo, and frames the whole thing as a rare opportunity.
That personalization isn’t flattery. It comes from photos scraped off public social media profiles. Once a parent responds, the pitch usually shifts to a “registration fee” or “portfolio development” cost, often in the $500 to $1,500 range, dressed up as a requirement to move forward with the modeling contract or contest placement. A legitimate modeling agency earns money by booking talent, not by charging families upfront.
Prize-Fee and Subscription Traps
A second wave of this scam hits after the initial contact. Once a parent engages, some versions ask for a processing fee, taxes, or shipping cost to release a prize that was never real to begin with. Others quietly enroll parents in a recurring “modeling profile” subscription that’s deliberately hard to cancel. Both rely on the same principle the FTC has flagged for years: a legitimate prize never requires payment to be released. If a message asks for money before you can collect a reward you supposedly already won, that’s the scam revealing itself.
Red Flags Across All of These
- Unsolicited contact, especially through Facebook Messenger or a generic Gmail address instead of an official platform.
- Pressure to act fast, with countdowns or “limited spots” language.
- Vague prize details that never specify an exact dollar amount or delivery method.
- No verifiable history of past winners or an actual company behind the offer.
- A domain that resembles BabyOfTheYear.org but isn’t an exact match.
- Anyone claiming to represent Facebook or Instagram contest support. The platforms don’t run or endorse these competitions.
Legit Contest, Real Scams Riding on It
This is a case where “scam or legit” doesn’t have one answer, because two different things are happening under the same name. The Colossal-run contest is a real, disclosed, pay-to-win fundraiser that plenty of parents reasonably find frustrating. It is not fabricated. The vote-seller groups, the fake selection emails, and the prize-fee follow-ups are a different animal entirely: opportunistic scams that exist only because the real contest generates enough traffic and emotional investment to make impersonation profitable. Treat the official site’s voting mechanics as a business-model complaint, and treat everything happening outside that domain as fraud until proven otherwise.
Final Verdict
If you’re entering the real contest, do it directly through babyoftheyear.org, read the full rules rather than the shorter FAQ, and understand that a “first place” badge usually just means first within one group, not nationally. Never buy votes from a private seller, never pay a fee to release a prize, and never hand over a password or verification code to anyone claiming to help you vote. If you already received a “your baby was selected” message from an unfamiliar contest or agency, don’t send payment, and consider whether your child’s photos are set to public on social media. If you already paid a vote seller or a fake agency, contact your bank or card issuer immediately, save every message and receipt, and report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov or your country’s equivalent consumer-fraud agency.
FAQ
Is the official Baby of the Year contest a scam? No. It’s a real, disclosed fundraising contest run by Colossal Management for the benefit of Baby2Baby, with published rules and a genuine prize.
Are the people selling “guaranteed votes” on Facebook legit? No. The official contest has stated that outside vote-selling services are fraudulent and not affiliated with the competition. Only donation votes made directly through the official site count.
I got an email saying my baby was selected for a contest I never entered. Is that real? No. This is a common phishing pattern that uses photos pulled from public social media accounts to fake a personalized “selection.” Don’t respond with payment or personal information.
Do I have to pay to enter or vote in the real contest? No. Entry and one daily vote are free. Paid donation votes are optional and go through the official site directly, never through a private seller.
What should I do if I already paid a vote seller or fake agency? Contact your bank or card issuer about the charge, save all messages and receipts as evidence, and file a report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
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