AI Global Media awards struck off and convicted lawyer with TWO legal awards

Introduction

A solicitor who was convicted of a criminal offence and struck off the roll has won no less than TWO legal awards from AI Global Media’s SME News magazine.

Alan Blacker was convicted of benefit fraud and then struck off the roll by the SRA in 2016, however, despite this AI Global Media’s magazine SME news awarded him, “Best Pro Bono Legal Services Practice 2024” and “UK Legal Client Service Excellence Award 2024”.

So, how could a solicitor who was struck off in 2016 still be winning awards for legal services in 2024?

The Scoop

I have to say I can take no credit whatsoever on the scoop for this.

Then original scoop came from Roll on Friday. However, I didn’t read the whole article before I did a quick google of SME News, suspecting that it had something to with AI Global Media – and I was correct. A week later, it seems the award had been “revoked” by SME News.

Roll on Friday had previously hilariously picked up awards for a fake law firm called FLF Abiola & Co, who were working in the new ‘Nollywood’ area of films.

AI Global Media

AI Global Media is company that came to my attention back in November 2023. Repeatedly over a period years I was written to and informed I had been nominated and then “won” a series of awards across a series of magazines purportedly published by AI Global Media. This is despite the fact that I never agreed to be nominated, there was no public judging panel, there was no awards ceremony, and the publications don’t even appear to be printed. Some of these ‘publications’ claimed to have a readership of between 70,000 and 238,000.

Despite, this AI Global Media were keen to sell me a media package of between £595 and £4,995.

Some small businesses have complained that having handed over money to AI Global Media, they have never heard back from them or received the services claimed.

In another case, a garden design company made a complaint about AI Global Media to the Advertising Standards Agency about another publication called “Build”. The complaint was upheld in August 2018, with the ASA concluding:

We told AI Global Media Ltd t/a Build to ensure that their future ads did not misleadingly imply that recipients had been nominated for awards following a voting process, or that there was a robust judging process which had resulting in their selection as category winners, if that was not the case.

Despite the ASA deciding this in August 2018, it is cleat that the leopard’s spots remain unchanged.

All of this comes at remarkable timing, as AI Global Media’s Kathryn Hall had written to me just 2 days prior demanding payment for another ‘award’ my dormant company had ‘won’ from 2023. Just a few days prior I had also been told I had “won” an award in the Luxe Life magazine. All these awards for a dormant company isn’t bad!

Over email, I questioned Kathryn Hall on a number of issues including requests to know where she obtained the company’s data, how they maintained GDPR, and so on and so forth. None of which Hall could answer.

Kathryn Hall ultimately concluded by saying she would only be prepared to speak to me over the telephone, and she had in fact concluded that I was a “scam”! Admittedly, I may have offered her a media package myself, including my hourly rate for telephone consultation…..

Is it a Scam?

I suggested to AI Global Media’s Kathryn Hall that it may constitute as a scam to harvest peoples email addresses, to tell them they have been nominated for awards that don’t exist, to then be selling advertising for awards which are basically invented with faux judging panels, and to be claiming that there are between 70,000 and 238,000 readers of a magazine that isn’t even printed.

Kathryn Hall suggested that to take this point of view was “slanderous”, before then stating she would only be prepared to speak with me over the phone.

It would of course be highly defamatory to suggest that AI Global Media runs any kind of scam, fraud or misrepresentation. Having been warned in August 2018 by the ASA and to be continuing the conduct in 2024, including ‘awarding’ struck off lawyers ‘awards; it seems there has been no change to the modus operandi.

Having considered all things I have decided: AI Global Media is almost certainly a scam.