Yes the writers of the future has been going for a few years now, and is very well respected as a competition for unpublished authors. It is on the level, people do win, and a volume of the winners is published each year.
Here is a wiki entry
Writers of the Future - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A friend of mine in the late 90's won a quarterly award, meant she went to the US for the big award ceremony - other than the Scientologists being in her ear a bit - everything else went as advertised, and other than her personal spending in the US, cost her nothing