Did Luisa Zissman rig online vote to win reality TV best female personality prize? Apprentice star 'paid web company to send thousands of fake entries' ~ The unveiling of a man the soul of a woman

Apprentice star won a National Reality TV Award in September last year
Beat rivals Millie Mackintosh, Leah Totton and Helen Flanagan
But sources from IT company seo77 say they used software to rig the vote
Firm allegedly spent three days bombarding voting site with fake entries
Miss Zissman has flatly denied attempting to influence the vote

By Kieran Corcoran

PUBLISHED: 06:06 EST, 25 February 2014 | UPDATED: 11:44 EST, 25 February 2014

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Apprentice star and Celebrity Big Brother runner-up Luisa Zissman rigged an online vote to win a popularity contest, it has been claimed.

Miss Zissman, 26, scooped the National Reality TV Award for Best Female Personality last year, beating rivals including Apprentice rival Leah Totton, former Made in Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh and I'm A Celebrity contestant Helen Flanagan.

But it has been claimed that she employed an IT company to bombard an online voting form with automatic submissions and ramp up her total.

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Victorious: Luisa Zissman, left, pictured in September holding her National Reality TV Award for Best Female Personality

Under fire: A worried-looking Miss Zissman was spotted out in central London today after the claims emerged

In total, 4.5million votes were submitted across all the categories of the online competition, which was followed by a star-studded awards ceremony in London.

She swapped messages with web firm seo77, who also ran a website for her, asking them to 'start the vote thing' ahead of the award, according to the Sun.

An account belonging to the company later replied saying: 'Gave you a little hand. Ran it for three days. Do you want the vote details?'

Miss Zissman later replies 'I won!!!! Will pay you in the morning.'

'Exchange': Miss Zissman exchanged the above messages with software firm seo77, according to the Sun. The left conversation took place before the awards and the right one afterwards, it is claimed (Not actual screen shots - images recreated using text from real messages exchanged)

Overjoyed: The star posed happily with her award after the ceremony, telling fans 'thank you all so much!!!!'

Rivals: Miss Zissman beat both Helen Flanagan, left, and Apprentice co-star Leah Totton, right, to win the prize

Topped: Former Made in Chelsea star Millie Mackintosh also lost out on the Best Female Personality prize

The alleged scam by seo77 involved setting up a 'bot' program, which would be capable of generating hundreds of bogus names and email addresses a minute.

The technology would potentially have been able to tip the vote in Miss Zissman's favour, though the organisers of the awards have claimed their security software would stop any attempts.

The reality TV star, who caused controversy with her steamy interactions with rapper Dappy while on appearing in Celebrity Big Brother, has well-established rivalries with the other award nominees.

The mother of one fought her way to the final round of The Apprentice against Leah Totton. But she lost out when Alan Sugar decided that her baking business was less worthy of investment that Miss Totton's proposal for cosmetic surgery clinics.

She has also clashed with former Coronation Street star and I'm a Celebrity contestant Helen Flanagan, particularly over their much-flaunted figures.

BEATEN BY THE BOTS - HOW COMPUTER PROGRAMS RIG VOTES

Internet experts have influenced high-profile polls in the past by employing 'bot' software.

The programs allow millions of automatically-generated entries to crowd out genuine votes and force a victory.

The online version of TIME magazine's Person of the Year award is a frequent target.

In 2009, a cult internet figure named Moot, who founded controversial message board 4Chan, topped the poll. He beat Gordon Brown and Barack Obama.

Likewise, North Korean dictator Kin Jong-un won the 2012 poll by a margin of more than 2million votes thanks to an army of fans employing bots.

While using such software is almost always against the rules of individual competitions, it is not illegal.

In a recent interview with ZOO magazine, Miss Zissman floated the idea of facing her rival in a 'boob-off' after both have appeared in a series of scantily-clad photosho ots.

She said: 'Apparently Helen Flanagan had the nerve to say that I'm not classy... Every time I see a picture of her, her t**s are out.'

'Don't get me wrong – I've got no problem with that – but mine are better than hers anyway. They're the best five grand I ever spent! Maybe we should have a boob-off.'

However, Miss Zissman flatly denied that any attempts to influence the vote were made. She angrily denied the claims on Twitter, and alleged that seo77 were vengeful after she stopped employing them to run the baking business for her IT company.

She later accused seo77 of making the allegations to get publicity, Tweeting: 'Does the fact this company are getting loads of publicity promoting themselves not tell anyone anything?constantly plugged at my expense!'

In a statement sent to MailOnline, seo77 appeared to confirm the bot scam, and say they are sure that it w orked.

A spokesman said: 'seo77 can confirm that on client instruction, we designed and implemented a bot system which was programmed to automate votes in favour of one particular nominee shortlisted for the NRTV Awards 2013.

'Although we are confident that the nominee would have won the award regardless, it is our firm belief that the program was effective and certainly assisted our client in their endeavours.'

The company also said it would normally keep such practices secret, and has launched an investigation into how the details emerged.