It’s been a good few months since I wrote my initial post on scam influencer accounts on Instagram and I’ve had a lot of traffic, comments and questions since it was published. A lot of similar themes have cropped up, so in order to be helpful to my wonderful readers, I thought I’d put together a quick guide on what you need to do when you’re contacted, if you’re hesitant, if you’ve purchased something and if you’re pretty sure/know you’ve been scammed.
It’s unfortunate that these vile cretins exist, but alas they do and we’re not here for that kind of shit. So let’s talk about what to do in these unfortunate scenarios.
I’ve been contacted by a company that have said they’ll help me grow my following if I buy and feature one of their products, what should I do?
As per my original post, you shouldn’t have to pay to collaborate or be featured on an account – true collaborations are ones where an item is gifted and a true sponsorship is one where you’re paid to talk about a company.
I’ve bought something from a potential scam account but I’m not sure if they’re legit, how can I tell?
Again, this was covered in my original post, but a few tell-tale signs of a scam account are;
- Heavily discounted products with a promise of being featured on their main account
- Having to pay upfront postage for an item to be sent to you (the only thing you might have to pay is a customs charge depending on where the item is being shipped from)
- Paying for products as a brand ambassador
I’ve bought something and loads of people have said it’s a scam, what should I do?
Wait until you’ve received your product – if it takes longer than 2 weeks to arrive, contact your bank or Paypal to let them know what’s happened so they can block any future payments (this is a safeguard more than anything and doesn’t mean that they’ll try to take more money from your account) and potentially see if you can get your money back.
If it arrives and it’s poor quality, contact the company, ask for a refund and as your bank/PayPal to block any future payments going out to them again.
I’ve been scammed, what should I do?
Okay, you need to follow all of the above steps which broken down are;
- Contact the company and follow their process for parcels not being received
- If you’ve followed their process to no avail, contact your bank/PayPal to see if they can get your money back and block future payments
- Return the product if you received one and follow their returns process
- Call them out on social media – I mean, this one is optional but I’m the kind of person that wants to warn people about dodginess on the internet (hence this post), so by calling them out publicly, they might not have a choice but to respond
- ALWAYS PAY WITH PAYPAL!!
An updated list of Instagram scam accounts
With time, more scam accounts are created by the day, so I thought to finish off I’d provide you with an updated list of scammers so you don’t get caught out in the flattery of “OMG Babe you’d be perfect for our brand, DM me to talk about collaborating!”
- Chic Wishlist
- Hot Miami Shades
- XOXO 5th Avenue
- Nora NYC
- Unicorn Eyewear
- New Desire NYC (this looks like a new one that’s potentially buying likes as their latest post has a couple of thousand and their usual doesn’t peak above 100)
- Karisland – offer “Ambassadors” 50% discount
- Risqué Labels (formerly Miss Luxe – the name change and password protected website brings all kinds of questions)
- Bombshellaa (as requested by the very helpful reader Maria – she actually found the products she’d ordered but hadn’t received on Wish for $3 when she’d paid around $30!)
- RG&B (as requested by another helpful reader called Zachary – many fellow bloggers that were sponsored didn’t receive their parcels and some people like him that had paid, didn’t receive anything at all!)
I haven’t linked to the above sites as I don’t want to help their DA ranking (if you know, you know), but a quick search online should shed some light on the dodgy goings on. Let me know if you’ve got any more that I can add to the above list and if you have any further questions you’d like some help with – I’m more than happy to continue adding to the list so we’re all in the know!
bloggerchic wishlistfashionfashion blogfashion bloggerfbloggerHot Desire NYCInstagramInstagram scam accountsInstagram scammersNora NYCRG&Brisque labelsunicorn eyewearxoxo 5th Avenue
It’s definitely important to at least use Paypal, at least then if you are ripped off then you can claim your money back a lot easier. It’s always such a massive warning sign for me if someone is asking to collaborate but then mentions me investing my money, such a huge red flag. Thankfully I’ve never gone as far as to purchase anything from companies such as this but I know many people who have unfortunately fell for their scams. I’m glad you’ve named and shamed some brands, luckily I haven’t come across any of these but I’d be telling them firmly where to go if they did contact me! Haha. What drives me mad is the pyramid schemes that want you to invest money and promise that you will make more back, I watched a whole documentary about them and it literally ruins peoples’ lives – awful.
Alice xx
I’m such an advocate for PayPal! And I’ve read about a lot of people that have gotten caught up in them too! It’s so funny that you said about pyramid schemes because I’ve got a post in my drafts about them that I’ve been working on 😂😂 a lot of them don’t put themselves as a scheme like that because they’re illegal, but the set up deffo is! Xx
If I ever order from a new site, no matter where I found it, I will ALWAYS check reviews (usually on trustpilot) as sadly I regularly see people getting scammed nowadays by anything from these insta accounts to even “big” influencers who are apparently selling clothes or jewellery and then the items either don’t turn up or arrive as a whole different product than described. I’m not sure if these people even have a conscience to be able to so easily just take money off of innocent people! I must get at least one account comment on every post I upload now, I really wish Insta would clear them all out!
Alice Xx
You know, I’ve never thought to check TrustPilot! I’ve been getting multiple comments on every post (I think my record is around 5!) which does my head in, but I noticed one girl replying to one asking them to DM her, which I’m going to trial – if they legit want to collab then they’ll reply lol. I really wish Insta would bin them off! xx
Please add Bombshellaa to the list. More then a month and haven’t received anything yet and I just saw the items I ordered for 3$ on Wish.com, lol. Do they really think I am going to promote 3$ products that they sell 30$? Wow. Everything seemed legit, they even had an account for ambassadors to track their sales. This is insane, the number of scams on IG blows my mind! Thank you for posting about this issue!
No way!! I haven’t heard of them before but will deffo add to the list – thanks for letting us know! ❤️
Just an FYI, I’ve added them to the list now 🙂 xx
Speaking of Wish, beware it’s a bit dodgy – I don’t use it. I’m so annoyed after my dealings with them:
I deleted my debit card off of my account and deleted the app (can’t remember if I deleted my account) because somehow my Wish account ordered some random-ass “smart watch” and I had no idea until it randomly arrived at my door and I thought someone had sent me a gift :'( Sure enough, I went back through my bank transactions and there was a transaction to Wish of $30-50 on the date the order said it took place.
I definitely didn’t order it and no-one else ever uses my phone or computer.
I disputed it and told them I had not made that order and demanded a refund to my debit card. The scoundrels said they could only give me “Wishcash” which is like store credit. 😡 I tried to argue with them and demand my real money refund to no avail. So I begrudgingly used my “wishcash” to buy a card game and then once it arrived I either deleted or signed out, and deleted the app.
I had only ever ordered one item from Wish, can’t remember what it was, and it had saved my card details “for next time” – usually they offer to save it as an option but instead they just went ahead and did it. I still have the smart watch and it’s a piece of cr*p, never got it working so it sits in its box. I kinda wonder if an employee of Wish or the Wish vendor that sold the watch had something to do with making the bogus order.
Sorry that comment got longer than I thought it would, just wanted to warn people about Wish
No thank you for your comment – I actually wrote a post all about them a couple of years ago when I did a review of their clothing (which was awful lol!)
I’m so sorry you had a crappy experience and I’ll make sure that my account is deleted now!
Another scam website is rose gold and black or “RG&B”. There are several people who did receive packages, even sponsored by them (i.e: teachingmensfashion); however, like me there’s a bunch of people who never received their packages. I got my money back but several others didn’t.
Oh I’m so sorry this happened to you! Onto the list they go and thanks for sharing!
So glad I just read this! Was contacted by Karisland and thought I’d investigate! You just saved me money!
Ahh glad to be of service!