Five easy ways to spot a fake brand ambassador scam. Have you been offered free sunglasses, jewelry, lashes, maybe even doggie bandanas in exchange for posting on Instagram? I bet they offered you 3 – 10 free items upfront! You’ll get a free code to purchase your items too.

Unfortunately, once you go through the checkout, you’ll find there’s a shipping charge you’ll need to cover so those items are not really free. This is your first red flag that’s it’s just another Instagram fake brand ambassador scam.

Fake Brand Ambassador Collabs to Avoid: Bonafide Jewels, Luximina Jewels, Ghost Jewels, Carly Gems (I’ll be adding to this as they contact me. Feel free to list yours in the comments too!)

Red Flags to Identify Fake Brand Ambassador Scams

Congrats, someone has taken notice of your posts and think you would be a great brand ambassador! It doesn’t matter how many followers you have; you just need to sign up quickly and place an order! Please read this before ordering anything.

1 – Check the Account

Brand ambassador scammers are almost always from sketchy accounts, not the main account. Usually you are contacted by a “promoter” for a company and told to contact the main site asap because space is limited! That promoter has a new account and few to zero followers.

2 – Pay for Shipping

They’ll give you a promo code for a generous number of free items upfront. Test it out- I bet no matter how many items you add to the cart, it will be free. The only thing you need to pay is the shipping, which is going to be anywhere from $20-$50.

This is how they cover the cost of the items, and the reason it’s always something like sunglasses and jewelry. Those items only cost a few dollars (or less!) so your shipping actually covers the whole cost of the items.

Real brand ambassador offers do not require you to pay anything, no even shipping!

3 – New Website

Don’t be swayed by their legit looking website! Scroll to the bottom- is it by Shopify? Almost all these scam sites are a Shopify store because they are very easy to set up. I hate to say this, because even I had a Shopify site for a little while. But every time I get one of these offers it made on Shopify.

Pug their website into a website fraud checking site like Scam Void and see how new it is and if there are any red flags. Usually, these sites are a couple months old and have very little traffic, yet they boast about tons of followers and orders.

4 – Fake Followers

The company’s profile also looks legit with tons of followers but look a little closer at the engagement. Buying followers is easy and cheap. Buying engagement is more expensive and harder to make look real. They may have something like 50K followers, but each photo has very few likes and comments. If they do have comments, it’s usually just an emoji or single word.

5 – No Evidence of Brand Ambassadors

It’s pretty suspicious if they promise you’ll be featured on their account, yet their Instagram page doesn’t feature any ambassadors. Try searching their hashtags. Why wouldn’t there be a ton of people promoting them if they are pushing such a great ambassador offer?

How the Jewelry Influencer Scam Works

Want more details on exactly how this fake brand ambassador scam works? Check out this post on the jewelry scams: