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We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but America’s Favorite Pet is a lowkey scam. This annual “contest” is nothing more than a for-profit scheme beneath a benevolent facade that preys on innocent, well-meaning pet parents, and their closest friends.
TLDR;
- Started in 2020, America’s Favorite Pet (AFP) is an annual pay-for-popularity contest run by Colossal Management, LLC, a for-profit “professional fundraiser”
- Participants are enticed by the prospects of taking the top spot (1 cat & 1 dog): $10,000 and their pet featured on the cover of Modern Cat or Dog, respectively
- Both the opaque contest rules and the convoluted web of legal entities behind it have been meticulously designed to provide the illusion of legitimacy
- But the ugly truth is buried deep within the fine print: despite a heavy emphasis on the charity PAWS, less than half of the money “donated” will benefit animals
If you genuinely want to improve your pet’s life instead of funding corporate greed, start here → Fix Your Cat’s Boredom
What is America’s Favorite Pet Contest?
America’s Favorite Pet is an annual scam-paign that has become increasingly popular amongst the online pet community, with a particularly heavy presence on social media. Which makes sense, since the ultimate objective is to get the most votes.
A more appropriate name for this faux fundraiser would be, ‘America’s Favorite Popularity Contest’, since that’s all it really is. And how do we know this?
The unfortunate truth is we were actually duped into participating last year.
How America’s Favorite Pet Scammed Us
Nearly every aspect of AFP has been meticulously engineered by its puppeteers (Colossal Management, LLC) to make the “contest” as lucrative as possible, for them.
The crux of it all, they shrewdly realize, is that contestants must believe they actually have a shot at winning. Only then will they stay engaged and continue urging supporters to buy more votes. Obviously, the longer this fantasy lives on, the better.
Signing up is simple and quick, with no mention of the actual rules. In fact, the only way to find them is by clicking through the lengthy ‘terms’ section first (something I am sure almost no one has done, ever).
Because if they did, I have a hunch many would reconsider after learning that daily voting spans multiple, marathon-like rounds. Altogether, AFP runs for a grueling 66 days! But as it turns out, making the contest as long as possible is just the first of many sly tactics…
Is America’s Favorite Pet Contest Legit?
Extending the contest period is a great way to increase donations. However, this only works if the majority of contestants believe they have a real shot at winning.
Once again, the organizers masterfully display their thorough grasp of the con by making real-time standings opaque, and impossible to gauge. This they achieve primarily in two ways:
- First, cats and dogs are further split into countless (literally) smaller groups of around 30 pets each. Since participants ever only have visibility into their group, there is no way to grasp the sheer number of accounts they are competing against.
- Second, even within groups, your vote count is never revealed. Not only does this make it impossible to gauge overall competitiveness at any point during the competition, but it also means there is really no way to tell how you are doing, even within your own group.
For example, imagine it’s the first round and your pet is currently 5th in their group. Meanwhile, the 4th place pet might be up by 3 votes, but they could also be 3,000 votes ahead, there is simply no way to know. The obvious effect of this “intentional blindness” is maximum vote-buying up until the very end of each round.
Brilliant, albeit highly unethical, if I do say so myself.
Why America’s Favorite Pet is a Scam
So far, so…good? I mean, what’s the big deal, social media is basically a pet popularity contest to begin with, isn’t it?
Well, the first problem becomes clear once you learn that people can vote multiple times. Only the first vote each day is free though, subsequent votes cost $1 each.
If you haven’t yet caught the issue, this basically means that the only way to succeed is by convincing friends and family members to throw down some serious dough. Not only is it a popularity contest, but you also need to buy your way on to the next round.
“Ok fine, it’s a popularity contest, but it’s not a scam”, you may be thinking. After all, the proceeds go towards helping pets in need, right? Sadly, it turns out this is not the whole story.
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Then enrichment and structured play matter far more than contest votes. Our free Boredom Fix Kit has everything you need to give your cat the best life possible.
Follow the Money and See Where It Goes
By using the high-level stats provided by Colossal for last year’s competition, we can back into the total $ amount raised, and then approximate how much of the money went where. In aggregate, America’s Favorite Pet collected ~$18M throughout the 2024 contest period.
Of the total donations received:
- $10k prize (~$5,600 after taxes) for winning cat & dog accounts = $20,000
- Final grant donated to PAWS < $8.9M
- “Professional fundraising” Fee (AKA total amount NOT donated to PAWS) = $8.9M
Just to be clear, we are not saying that the contest is all bad. There’s no denying that some of the proceeds go towards a good cause. Perhaps just not enough? But we also find the structure of the contest itself to be highly misleading, at best.
Furthermore, had the same gross donations instead gone to an actual, reputable charity whose primary mission is to help animals in need, the impact would be much greater.
For argument’s sake, let us use the ASCPA’s published allocation %’s to compare:
- Unlike Colossal, the ASPCA provides a transparent breakdown of every dollar it spends. We can easily see that around 25% of their annual budget goes towards fundraising (20%) and other administrative expenses (5%).
- Contrast this with Colossal’s jaw-dropping 50% pass-through and we can see that ~$4.5M of “donations” dropped to their bottom line. Not a bad payday for setting up a website and paying B-list celebs to bolster legitimacy. Their name seems ironically accurate indeed.
Admittedly, I have zero experience in this field but am fully confident I could run an online popularity contest for much, much less than the cost of a small yacht. Who knows, maybe I should become a ‘professional fundraiser’ when I grow up?!
How We Learned America’s Favorite Pet Contest is a Scam
Anyone who’s been duped knows that perhaps the worst part about it is the shame and embarrassment that arise once the jig is up. I experienced this firsthand last year, shortly after the excitement of making it to the third round wore off.
Admittedly, I was blinded by the outside chance of making my cats famous, and never even glanced at the fine print. It was only after I received an unsolicited DM on social media that I began to question the legitimacy of AFP.
I’m even more embarrassed to admit that my initial reaction was anger, followed by a heavy dose of disbelief. But this soon wore off when I started researching AFP and its organizers.
I realized I’d been tricked into encouraging my closest friends and family to take part in an elaborate scheme. I felt nauseous and immediately stopped promoting the contest everywhere. But I was too ashamed to outright tell anyone to stop voting for us.
Furthermore, I didn’t tell any other participants about what I’d learned, for fear of inducing the same shame and disappointment in them that I was already feeling. Let bygones be bygones, I quietly told myself.
The silver lining, if there is one, is that we can now use our platform and firsthand experience to shed light on this lucrative yet deceptive organization that preys on animal lovers and their closest acquaintances.
How Can You Help
America’s Favorite Pet is no doubt the biggest animal-related scam we have encountered.
Devastated is how I felt, to find out we’d been had. I barely had the heart to do much besides pull AFP from our profile and drop out at once. The pride I had initially felt for making it through a few rounds immediately turned to shame.
But this experience had planted a seed in me, which remained dormant until recently. When I opened my email to find an invite to this year’s competition, I knew I couldn’t turn a blind eye again; I decided to take a stand. And this is the part where you come in…on behalf of the animals everywhere, we need your help.
First, the obvious thing to do is avoid this poor excuse for a contest. Do not enter, participate, or support/encourage others to do so. There are hundreds, if not thousands of legitimate organizations that desperately need your support.
Second, please like, comment, and SHARE this post with anyone you know that loves animals. Spreading the word is the best way to help others avoid wasting countless hours and money on a contest that only pretends to do good.
On behalf of animals in need everywhere, thank you.
Have you had a bad experience with America’s Favorite Pet or Colossal Management’s other scam-paigns? Leave a comment below!
