I was scammed by a celebrity influencer

https://medium.com/@wannabe.influencer1/i-was-scammed-by-a-celebrity-influencer-6612d61e1a9e

by jrnichols • 8 years ago

114 51 8 years ago

ryanlol5• 8 years ago

I think it's quite the stretch to describe someone as a celebrity just because they have 800k instagram followers. And yeah, that site is full of scammers with high follower counts.

I own a couple of nice names and constantly have people with million+ followers messaging me trying to scam me for them.

reidjs• 8 years ago

Well if you have 500 people willing to pay $500 for a course I would call you a celebrity. Not because of the number of followers, but because of the value of those followers.

spaceflunky2• 8 years ago

She's just tapping a market with a huge demand and no one offering any "supply."

There are no university courses for "instagram star" so if you're the charlatan who is promising fame and fortune for the low low price of $500, there are plenty of people willing to hop on board. If anything I would say 500 people is really low.

smudgymcscmudge• 8 years ago

I wonder how many people would recognize my name. I’d guess 2,000 tops. Somebody who 800,000 people have heard of seems like a celebrity to me.

robertAngst5• 8 years ago

Paid followers are a real thing.

Check out these people's website/youtube on Alexa(or similar). They are dead.

Or check out the comments and see how fake/active the posts are.

zeroDivisible• 8 years ago

How can somebody scam you out of your Instagram name other than you giving / selling it to them?

ryanlol5• 8 years ago

They pretend to be buying the name and string you along for a while, after a bit they request you swap the name onto a fresh account before they'll send you the money. If you try to swap the name, they'll use a script to automatically register it.

Apparently lots of people fall for this, at least according to the scammers. Given how many DMs I get every day, I don't doubt it at all.

CamelCaseName• 8 years ago

Wow, great write up. Thanks a lot for taking the course and talking about it, perhaps it was because you went into it willing to burn $500 but many would stay silent.

I can't believe at the missed business opportunity here. It sounds like she could have easily pulled 7 figures from running those classes. Even if she hired a "business manager" of sorts for a cut to grow her lessons, it would have been a really financially rewarding endevour.

One thing that boggles the mind is how many people were not planning to request a refund! I couldn't imagine spending $500, not receiving what I paid for, and being okay with that.

Honestly, it still surprises me how much some Instagrammers make. A friend of mine runs a food IG (~3,000 followers local to the area) and pulls in 1-2 free meals a week, effectively funding the content creation costs. Another friend is in the ~40,000 follower range and gets paid something like $50-$200 + meals for each event -- you just go and book a time slot on their website.

Yet for me, IG feels so fake, but there are enough repeat advertisers that there must be real users out there who follow and purchase influencer recommendations.

elorant• 8 years ago

Part for that is because web advertising in general sucks. You have fraudulent clicks all over the place, banner blindness, adblockers and whatnot etc. So brands are looking for new venues to reach consumers and influencers/celebrities are a good match. Probably this will also die down soon than later but until then the smart ones will make a good buck.

robertAngst5• 8 years ago

Yet for me, IG feels so fake

Its pay to play for sure. You don't get shown unless you are providing Facebook with money.

This is why the content feels fake. Only highly profitable instagrammers can afford to pay to promote.

ryanlol5• 8 years ago

What do you mean? My content constantly hits discover and I certainly haven't paid FB a penny.

giarc• 8 years ago

It sounds like she could have easily pulled 7 figures from running those classes.

That's what blows my mind. She had 500 people sign up for the course, obviously there is demand. I don't feel like it would be too hard to put together a 12 week course and have people feel like they got their money worth. Then just simply rinse and repeat. Heck, she could have even found the real die hards from the original 500 and offered a special one-to-one course for $5000 and had weekly one on one's with her. Sounds like it could have been a cash cow.

jancsika• 8 years ago

I can't believe at the missed business opportunity here. It sounds like she could have easily pulled 7 figures from running those classes.

You seem to be overlooking that she already made up to $225,000 for doing close to nothing.

Plus up to $25,000 for making the first assignment "Start building a pyramid scheme for me." And that's gravy on top of however many new rubes signed up for the next course for which she "solved" the refund problem with a third party payment service.

lifeformed• 8 years ago

I look at it as: $225k to kill the golden goose.

kilroy123• 8 years ago

I _completely_ agree. Put in the work and release a decent course. Rinse and repeat. Easily could start clearing 7 figures a year.

jrnichols• 8 years ago

First submission so I might have goofed up, but I’m not the one this happened to. I did think that the social aspect was interesting though.

julianlam• 8 years ago

Don't think of it as having been scammed, but moreso that you paid your $500 tuition to the school of life. You won't make that mistake again.

What honestly shocks me is the "aw shucks" attitude in the email from Teachable. I get that they're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place, and they did issue as many refunds as they could, but to turn to students and say "we've paid out the remaining amount of money... so sorry about that!" is like rubbing salt into the wound.

If she moved to a custom payment gateway, they probably know what it is, and that gateway ought to know about the scam she's pulling. After all, they have an incentive to keep these bad actors from using their systems.

ryanlol5• 8 years ago

The key lesson here is to always pay everything with a credit card.

TylerE• 8 years ago

You'd think so, but evidence suggest otherwise.

Many people, usually housewives, bounce from one MLM scam to another.

tlrobinson• 8 years ago

So it sounds like the course actually did a pretty good job of teaching the author what a "celebrity influencer" does?

Rjevski4• 8 years ago

To be fair, the main lesson here is that you shouldn’t be paying 500$ to an illusionist.

That “Angie” whoever she is, is just a fraud. She’s not actually delivering any value. Whatever she’s pretending to earn could be all fake (it’s honestly not that difficult to fake these “perfect” photos and definitely doesn’t require to be a millionaire), and even if it’s real now, she’s gonna be the first one to get the door the second this social media/bullshit media bubble pops and brands realise it’s not worth it.

You want to make money? There are plenty of career paths that will make you good money by delivering actual value to your customers. Bragging on Instagram and getting virtual internet points isn’t one of them.

wpietri3• 8 years ago

I am not really an Instagram person, but I don't think you're right here. I think the value provided by Instagram today is basically that of glossy fashion and style magazines in the decades of yore. Some people like to look at pretty photos of pretty people wearing pretty things.

nosuchthing• 8 years ago

Except there were maybe 20 of those magazines where as now the barrier to entry is so easy that there's 20 million kids making these sorts of photos.

_eht• 8 years ago

Dad?

bitL• 8 years ago

"Celebrity", "influencer", "/r/nottheonion" - this is reaching unthinkable levels of absurdity... Developers of "/r/outside" should nerf gains from those side-quests...

mcrittenden• 8 years ago

There's a response here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BrTnd_wBblI/

reasonablemann• 8 years ago

It has sociopath written all over it... then again, sociopathy is likely the reason she's followed by so many people.

Beefin• 8 years ago

I'd be willing to bet the majority of IG accounts with 10k+ followers don't provide any real value outside of pretty pictures.

catacombs• 8 years ago

If you're a hot, white, blonde female, those are all the qualifications you need for thousands upon thousands of followers, assuming you are active on the platform.

throwawaylalala• 8 years ago

File a chargeback with your credit card conpany. Encourage others to do the same.

readhn• 8 years ago

Why would someone pay for this with a debit card?

Pay with a credit card, then you are at least protected if anything goes wrong.

Rjevski4• 8 years ago

Why can’t you chargeback with a debit card? I’ve done it multiple times successfully.

Aloha2• 8 years ago

Quite arguably the job of an 'influencer' is to scam people.

robertAngst5• 8 years ago

This affects me daily.

I run a popular website that has saved hundreds of thousands of people money and time. Its been cool, but I lose about 1-3k/yr.

Often people tell me to run ads, or put affiliate links, or whatever.

The issue becomes, I wouldn't be saving people money.

The entire purpose of Efficiency Is Everything is to help people. If I'm shilling some crappy mutual fund or promoting an expensive protein shake- I failed my purpose.

/rant, but I do not think I will be profitable unless I contradict my original purpose.

Aloha2• 8 years ago

I dont think adding a couple unobtrusive ads would impact saving people time or money.

jclay• 8 years ago

I don't know, I have a hard time finding sympathy for this.

I've paid many thousands of dollars towards courses to get my degree from a top university and most of them were awful. As with any university, there's of course no way to get a refund or make any public complaints that would yield an outcome.

woogiewonka• 8 years ago

These "influencers" and their instagram accounts are so cringeworthy. How can anyone live their life like this, constantly posing and putting on an image? This can't be healthy. I get the money making aspect and getting paid to do something like travel.. but at what point does posing for glamour shots take away the fun of enjoying the places you go? Why do people follow these people? I don't get it...

robertAngst5• 8 years ago

but at what point does posing for glamour shots take away the fun of enjoying the places you go? Why do people follow these people? I don't get it...

That is exactly it, it becomes a job.

Its not really different than watching cable TV and hearing someone review a travel destination.

This can't be healthy.

I think this is 'grass is greener on the other side' effect. What makes traveling and growing your influence unhealthy?

Its that we want this ideal lifestyle, and are jealous(?).

Whatever the case, most people are not making even 6 figures off their instagram accounts by just posting pictures. OP's article talked about offering an additional service.

PavlovsCat• 8 years ago

Its not really different than watching cable TV and hearing someone review a travel destination.

Hmm. First video I looked at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TOltq6OgR4

After the "intro" -- which isn't exactly like someone (who isn't Paris Hilton or Stefan Raab etc.) reviewing anything in earnest -- it's just the usual half-coherent babbling most youtubers do. You don't fly a TV team to a destination and then just scratch your ass and drop sentences any random person interviewed on the street would say. That's not a "review", even for TV standards which are hardly anything to aspire to.

Youtube is much dumber than TV, just enter "game name review", and depending on the game most of it will be people playing a game, badly, sometimes without even talking, and when they talk, it's not a "review" at all, but "hi guys, my dog is cute, I'm bringing you the best reviews please subscribe, I'm about to review this game, okay I'm now reviewing this game, it's a game, it sucks and has many flaws but I enjoyed it, please leave a like, thanks for watching".

The best are the people who cut out every breath they take, every moment they think (or maybe they just go blank, who knows), and then they still manage to say not a single thing in 15 minutes.

What makes traveling and growing your influence unhealthy?

That was referring to "constantly posing and putting on an image". If that's so great, why do you have to rephrase it first?

And what is "growing your influence"? I see a lot of people with NO grip on themselves, what influence do they have? Isn't Alex Jones also having a healthy career by that same token? A bunch of "followers", "just growing influence". They must be providing value, because they "make 6 figures".

Its that we want this ideal lifestyle, and are jealous(?).

Turning oneself into the equivalent of a Teletubbie? No, thanks.

When someone makes it clear they find it cringey and would not enjoy "being that", maybe first accept that that is actually so. When someone says "I hate this, why would anyone do this?", don't say "Don't you actually love it though? whatever the case may be.."

Seeing a lot of these personalities that are anything but a personality, I think that's the main reason really, that they have no personality, no thoughts, but a long life to fill with that nothing. That makes people hyper, and people who are likewise lost cling to that bubbling nothing to distract them from the fear that sits squarely upon their neck as well. It's not driven by idiocy, fear drives the idiocy. Watching 99% of youtube to me is like watching a blob of water in an overheated pan gliding around on air. The question isn't where is it going, but what is it running from.

maxxxxx2• 8 years ago

I myself have no desire to live that lifestyle but when you think about, it probably beats most office jobs by far.

spaceflunky2• 8 years ago

By what measure? All you see is a framed seconds. What you don't see is all the hours these influencers spend begging someone, anyone to give them a freebie or some kind of support. Then they get the free hotel room, and they spend the rest of the time on shitty wifi trying to line up the next freebie. Then when you add up all the time they spent, it works out to probably be below minimum wage. There is no way some nobody with even 1MM followers is making a sustainable living and saving the future.

Sure, these people get to go places, but are they ever really looking at it through the eyes of relaxation? It just seems miserable to me actually. I feel the same way about actors, the job of acting actually sucks, but at least they get million dollar payouts at the end. The instagram 'stars' are lucky to get a free hotel room and a discounted flight.

robertAngst5• 8 years ago

As I've read more about this topic, what if the lady was going through a divorce + busy?

I know that doesnt absolve from responsibilities, but I cannot imagine that experience.

tfmatt• 8 years ago

Is this sarcasm?

p3nt3ll3r• 8 years ago

Dont people know that most of these "followers" are fake accounts created from some third world digital slave labor company?

Rjevski4• 8 years ago

You’re grossly over-estimating the average intelligence (and willingness to actually stop and think for a minute) of those accounts’ target markets.

I have friends who spend pretty much their entire lives on FB and Insta and they would swallow anything from there... last time one was surprised when I told her a watch she saw advertised on FB with a huge discount (300£ to like around 39£) was never at 300£ in the first place.

I was scammed by a celebrity influencer

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