Is it a Scam? How to Identify Social Media Scammers.

Did you ever wish you could be Ali Rose— Xtina’s character in Burlesque? You’d leave your small hometown, move to LA, meet a retired dancer with a failing business, and single-handedly revive it based on your talent alone? Well, that happens all the time in the real world, maybe not in that exact sense (it’s Hollywood after all), but the primary concept remains the same:

You have a talent. Someone with a platform sees it. Then with hundreds of hours, blood, sweat, and tears, you find your success. #growth

This psychological need for external validation and success exists in all of us. We want to be accepted by society, to whatever degree, and marketing specialists (myself included) know this and how to capitalize on it. Sometimes marketers, like social media scammers, exploit this aspect of humanity, and give marketing and advertising a bad name.

In this article, I’m going to cover what a social media scam looks like, the red flags to look out for when identifying a scammer, and the psychology behind why it works. It wouldn’t be fair to just drag this scammer through the mud, so I’ll also include some helpful tips for actually entering into the brand ambassador biz. Like how to recognize the actual marketing tools they (and you) will use to make contact, how they operate, and most importantly how they will compensate you. Ready? Cool, let’s get started.

Scams can be perceived in a lot of different ways. They can look like a small business that is just trying to find anyone to promote their product, or they can appear to be a very well-established and viable company— like the one I’ll be dissecting today. No matter the size, the basic components remain the same.

Let’s start with how these scams get ahold of people. Oftentimes a random bot account (the 1st red flag) will comment something like “We want you to be our brand ambassador. Please check your DM.” Then you’ll check the DM and it’s either a link to a website or a message telling you to go to their main page.

Then you’ll take a look at the page and they’ll either have a huge follower count, but a low number of people they follow, and an average engagement rate on their page of 1-3%. Or, they’ll have a small number of followers that’s proportionate to the number of people they are following, and the interactions are virtually non-existent— the 2nd red flag. At this point, you might start to ask the question “Is this a scam?”

The answer to that question is almost always yes, especially if it’s something you have to ask yourself. Trust that initial instinct.

Anyways, the next thing you’ll want to do is look at the “about this page section.” This is found by clicking the 3 dots near the top of their profile that opens a drop-down menu. From there, just click and you’re in. So, once you’re in that section it’ll look something like this image on the right.

This section will tell you where the account is based, how many times the name of the account has been changed, and to which names. This account is based in Morocco and has changed 3 times, from “prmanmohammadon,” to “prmanmohammand,” then to “jessica_collab,” and now it’s “pawbless,” and that’s really all the info you need to know that this is a scam.

I actually don’t recommend clicking the link in their bio until you’ve done this step above and have determined you don’t have enough info to make a decision. Primarily because con websites like this one can sometimes contain hidden web pages and malware that will strip your information and put you at risk. So, if my identity gets stolen, at least I’ll have this blog.

After clicking through their page, their followers, and the people they are following, I went to check the website. On the website, the first thing to look for is the quality of the copywriting. The main account has around 78,000 followers, and the ambassador account for this fake company has around 56,000. With that high of a following, this brand should have the revenue to pay a decent copywriter to write their website with minimal errors and with a relatively good understanding of sales. So, let’s take a look at it.

The first thing we see on the website is a picture of a Pitbull with a banner that reads “beautiful dog needs a beautiful bandana,” which is okay, but in marketing that doesn’t really tell us anything about the company and it definitely doesn’t provide additional trust for the consumer, it’s rather neutral in that regard. Additionally, it’s not a great unique selling position, which could just be the skill level of the copywriter, but again, an account with as many “followers” as Pawbless should be able to pay a decent copywriter to write for them.

Next, we’ll take a look at their mission statement. At this point, I’m more or less just breaking down the poor marketing and copywriting, primarily because viable and genuine companies have good copywriters that know how to design a website to increase trust and credibility. This one just keeps going downhill, and I’m in for a ride I guess.

In their mission statement, they talk about wanting dogs to feel their innermost self while flaunting these bandanas. It’s an interesting perspective, but dog owners are the consumer, not the dogs, so this isn’t a great selling position. When was the last time you saw a company like Petco, Petsmart, or even your local mom-and-pop shop base their entire marketing premise on dogs expressing their personality? This position is fine; however as I went through the site, they didn’t provide much more information about their product, just that your dog would have high self-esteem.

The purpose of a website is to build trust with customers, establish credibility, and increase sales. Small businesses or start-up companies that might not have the revenue for something fancy, will still have some sort of credibility that is visible on their website (ie. a picture outside of the factory, images of the team, or a general understanding of sales...etc.)

Not to mention, that in their “About Us” section it also says the company is based in Austria, which varies from where their Instagram is based (another red flag). Theoretically speaking this company, if it were legitimate, would be in German, not English and they’d have an option for Google to translate the website. This aspect is very untrustworthy, inconsistent, and ultimately leads the viewer to doubt themselves, which is just bad marketing.

On top of all of this, their pricing was super high and their brand ambassador program is also inconsistent. I think their “reviews” said they gave between a 10-20% discount for ambassadors to share with their followers; however, their ambassador page says followers will get a 50% discount. If we analyze the cost of their products and compare it to the discounts and donations we’ll see that they’ve drastically cut down their revenue, or so it appears.

By taking the average cost of an item, let’s say $30, and deduct the 50% discount they give to your followers we’re left with $15. Now they also pay their ambassadors a 15% commission or $2.25. Then we take out the cost of charity ($1.50) and the company is left with $11.25. Now from the looks of their products, they likely get them off of Alibaba for $1.00 to maybe $5 max per unit, leaving them with $6–10 after these deductions. Ultimately they’re losing all of their money in shipping costs, licensing (assuming they have it), website hosting, discounts, and free merch. No viable business is giving away money like this.

So now I want to cover a little bit about why scams like this work. Like I mentioned in the intro, they hit a nerve that many people have which is to be seen and heard. They prey on accounts with low or average follower counts to become their brand ambassadors, this is because they know that accounts of this size will be so enthusiastic about “being selected” they aren’t likely to fact check.

Secondly, they’re selling dog accessories. Their entire feed is of dogs wearing bandanas. It’s cute, it’s fun, and most people love to see dogs wearing clothes.

Finally, they talk about contributing to a cause. Just saying that they donate 10% of purchases to charity is enough to trick people. A lot of times people don’t go this deep in determining if something is a scam or not, they either trust their gut or play the odds.

Now the biggest reason that a scam like this works is that it’s still using genuine marketing tools. They have a product, they hit a few nerves, and they sell it. From the number of ambassadors they’ve tricked into buying, it looks like they genuinely deliver a product, which is a step ahead of some of the other scams on Instagram, but it still doesn’t change how fraudulent their actions are.

At the end of the day, this company is lying about their presence, lying about who they are, and lying to their customers about their intentions. The thing is, at this point, they could transfer their business strategy into something more trustworthy and would probably find great success, even if most of their followers are bought.

I’m not going to judge them too heavily, I couldn’t imagine being in a position where I felt like tricking people was the only way to promote my livelihood, but if the business owner does happen to read this, I want you to know, you could use all the marketing data you have to run a legal business. You’d probably be good at it.

So we’ve covered what scams look like, but how do we know when it’s the real thing? First of all, most brand ambassador programs will use verified brand reps to message their prospects directly if they don’t use the main account. Secondly, odds are that to get into this line of work, you’ll have to contact companies yourself via cold email, cold calling, networking at events…etc. But, once you’ve found a genuine and reliable company to promote for, the rest of the onboarding looks something like this:

1. Contact

As stated above, you’re more likely going to have to contact brands yourself. When a legitimate brand does reach out, it won’t be from some random bot account with a string of numbers after the first name. It will be from a verified or verifiable representative of the brand. They also aren’t likely to DM you, they’re more likely to email or cold call, but that’s a matter of preference.

1. Meetings

Businesses looking for ambassadors are going to qualify their leads, not hire some random person with 100 followers from a small hick town (like me). They’re going to find people that have some knowledge of marketing, a decent following, and someone that genuinely matches their image. So there will be several meetings, not just one DM promising ambassadorship.

1. Payment.

Brands pay their ambassadors. No matter who the person is, they are getting paid. Whether it’s $10 or $2000, there is money involved. Most of these fake ambassadorships offer only discounts or a free product. Brands that use high-profile accounts to boost their visibility typically offer the free product and pay. I cannot stress this enough, companies know the value of marketing and promotion, they have a budget in place to pay for things like this. If they don’t pay you, it’s a scam in one way or another.

So now you know that one “Pawbless” is a scam. A scam is a dishonest scheme and from the thorough amount of deep-diving I’ve done today, I can say with full confidence that this is a scam. We’ve also gone over the red flags to look for, the steps to go through when determining social media scams, and what legitimate brands do to recruit new ambassadors.

So, have you seen one of these scams on Instagram? What made you realize it? Let me know in the comments below.