Fake Brand Partnerships | What a scam looks like today

The thing with scams is that someone will fall for it. It's usually something that's too good to be true. Some are more elaborate than others. But it's 2020, young people know better than to respond to emails from a foreign prince.

The rules for what a legit brand partnership looks like these days are not so black and white anymore. Scammers have gotten good at creating legitimate e-commerce websites, social media profiles, and documents that feel real.

My guess is that these people are vying for a large volume of people to fall for their fake partnership and that's how they make money. The cost/benefit is also relatively low risk, so like me, I went for it to see what would happen. I explain it all in my video. 😊

These scammers ask you to pay for a product at a discount (legit brands won't make you pay for product) from their shop that's powered by Shopify. No worries about giving away your payment information because payments are processed by Stripe (just like on Glou Marketplace), so we're good there. And the company does deliver the product. So that takes them out of SCAM Territory and into more of scam territory.

Is it possible for an aspiring content creator to be reached out to by a brand? Unlikely. However, if you are wanting to become a paid influencer, I highly recommend the free seminar from Julie Solomon. She gives you a lot of good tips on how to reach out to brands, all while selling you on her very pricey course - Genius saleswoman. But you know, sleep on it before you hand over however many hundreds of dollars her course costs.

Here is a scam fully exposed. Screenshots of everything below!

Also, if you've fallen for a scam like this, don't be so hard on yourself. This is a new phenomenon that not many people know about. Forgive yourself and take it as a lesson learned. 😘

-Karen

PS Be careful of "too good to be true"deals on Instagram. Always Google reviews and see if they are legit. Always do some digging because you just can't know. My best friend showed me these sneakers he wanted to get from this French brand. The shoes were marked waaayyy down and were like $60 on sale or something. There was some FOMO hyping in the copy, but what really raised a flag for me is that the brand claimed to be a designer. And their brand story was literally all jargon. It was a string of non-sensical words like "From the most aesthetic designers from Europe who celebrate angularity with sophistication we only produce the most fashion luxury high-end footwear that reflect modernity in a renaissance of style heritage DNA". And then the fake reviews were all like "I love my shoe!" "Great qualities in product", and then some real reviews that were like "these shipped from China and are so small I can't fit my big toe in, this is a garbage company".

For the full story watch my video:

Emails:

Look, bad grammar doesn't always mean that something isn't legit. However, I'm familiar with common non-native speaker mistakes. Also, it takes like DECADES for people to master a language, including your mother tongue, so awkward phrasings are kinda whatever. We will brush off this email because they're a European company (everything is in Euros) - moving on!

PS I'm not an asshole in real life. I never correct people (unless they specifically ask me to point out mistakes) because like, as long as you're communicating with me you're doing great! As a semi-competent polyglot I can appreciate people speaking to me in my native tongue.

The attachment/contract:

It was dated correctly, but I never actually had to sign anything. I've done real brand deals before and they usually send you the contract/NDA via a link, where you sign electronically and get a copy.

Instagram Feed:

Look, idk what to tell you. These products are straight-up shopped into the models' hands. No one holds stuff like that naturally. I'm particularly fond of the dude biting into the device sexily.