Hello lovely people!
Wow, I have a totally different post for you today. Trust me, I never thought I would be writing a post like this because I don't like to complain and I don't like surrounding myself with negativity. I believe in law of attraction, meaning if you are negative, you will attract negative and pessimistic people instead of positive people. Over the years I definitely witnessed things that I thought weren't fair in the blogging world (mostly in my country), but I have never said anything publicly or complained about it. Instead, I keep these feelings to myself because the last thing I want is to be a part of some blogger drama and gossip.
However, recently me and 3-4 other bloggers from various countries were victims of a brand that supposedly wanted to collaborate with us. We were scammed by this brand and there are two main reasons I decided to take time out of my busy day and write this post:
- I think people don't talk about this topic enough. There are bloggers/influencers being scammed all over the world, but everyone likes to pretend like it's not happening.
- I don't want this to happen to someone else. I saw on the brand's Instagram stories that they are already looking for new influencers to collaborate with, meaning they are looking for new victims again.
I have been blogging for over 6 years, and during that time I have collaborated with brands from all over the world. I had never had an experience like this before this happened.
Here is how it started... A few weeks ago a girl named Summer posted in a Facebook group for influencers and bloggers that she has an online shop and that she is looking for people to collaborate with. I am member of a few groups like that, and would recommend bloggers, influencers and YouTubers to join these groups becauses brands often post there when they are looking for people to collab with. You can also ask blogging related questions, and people will help you. If I remember correctly she didn't write too much information; just that she is looking for influencers to help her promote her giveaway. After I contacted her, she said that each influencer will get a $150 gift card to spend in her shop as a thank you gesture. This was all pretty standard and typical at this point.
Before I agreed to this collaboration, I checked out her online shop. I saw there aren't that many things there, but I found a few cute pieces, and I was already thinking how I could style these items. Also, I kinda liked the fact that it was a new, small online shop because we could help her promote her shop, and we would in the end get her clothes which we would wear in our photos and we would definitely tag her shop in the photos. This part was not her requirement, but this is just a normal thing to do, which also means more exposure for her. After Summer had chosen the influencers she wants to collab with, she made a Facebook group chat with all of us, and she said she would give us all the info there. It would also be a way for all of us to stay in touch during this time when we would be promoting her giveaway. To be perfectly honest, the way she communicated with us from the beginning seemed unusually cold to me.
My intuition was immediately telling me something was not right, but I didn't listen to it. This is a good lesson for everyone - listen to your intuition because it is right 99% of the time. It may sound silly, but if you know the fashion and blogging industry, then you know the way we communicate with each other is always using words like lovely, trying to be super nice and using a lot of emojis. That is literally how 90% of people in the niche communicate. She didn't do any of that - her messages were super cold, without ANY emojis, and my intuition was telling me it's so weird. At the same time I was telling myself: "Well, not everyone uses emojis, it's perfectly fine!" I should have listened to my intuition.
After setting up a group chat, she sent us the visuals and we all agreed on the same time we would post it.
The giveaway lasted about a week if I remember correctly, and after it was over and she sent us the name of the winner, some of us asked her about our gift cards. I sent her a DM on Instagram, and she responded that they are updating the website at the moment and adding a lot of new stuff so we can choose from many more items, and that she will send us the gift card the next day. This was last Thursday, so she was supposed to send us the codes on Friday, which didn't happen. Of course, the weekend came, so I was thinking she will send it to us on Monday. However, she didn't. Because of that, I decided to send her a message again (remember I was super nice to her the whole time), and she didn't even read it the whole day. A this point this started to look really suspicious, especially after I talked with two other bloggers involved in the promotion and they said she wasn't answering them either. I still believed that maybe she is so busy and she doesn't have time to answer, but after one of the bloggers told me that Summer blocked her on Instagram and Facebook, I knew were scammed. I decided to look for her Instagram page, and of course I couldn't find it anymore, meaning she blocked me too. I found out later she blocked me on Facebook as well. 🙄 We all got really mad because we honoured our agreement and she didn't. We were so excited and promoting her shop and giveaway and she acted in such a disgusting way to us. I manage another account on Instagram in addition to mine, so I decided to use that account and check her Instagram. I was able to find it this way, and I was even more shocked after I watched her Insta story - she is looking for influencers to collaborate with AGAIN! It wasn't enough for her that she took advantage of us, but she is looking for new victims. At that point I knew I had to expose her - her online shop is called All Things Klay. I would highly suggest that you don't collaborate with her because you will get scammed. I would also suggest you don't buy from this shop because who knows if you would even get your items!
Honestly, I feel so good after exposing her. This never happened to me before but I guess you live and you learn. A question for all influencers/bloggers out there - have you ever been scammed by a brand? Let me know.
xoxo Sienna
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My intuition was immediately telling me something was not right, but I didn't listen to it. This is a good lesson for everyone - listen to your intuition because it is right 99% of the time. It may sound silly, but if you know the fashion and blogging industry, then you know the way we communicate with each other is always using words like lovely, trying to be super nice and using a lot of emojis. That is literally how 90% of people in the niche communicate. She didn't do any of that - her messages were super cold, without ANY emojis, and my intuition was telling me it's so weird. At the same time I was telling myself: "Well, not everyone uses emojis, it's perfectly fine!" I should have listened to my intuition.
After setting up a group chat, she sent us the visuals and we all agreed on the same time we would post it.
The giveaway lasted about a week if I remember correctly, and after it was over and she sent us the name of the winner, some of us asked her about our gift cards. I sent her a DM on Instagram, and she responded that they are updating the website at the moment and adding a lot of new stuff so we can choose from many more items, and that she will send us the gift card the next day. This was last Thursday, so she was supposed to send us the codes on Friday, which didn't happen. Of course, the weekend came, so I was thinking she will send it to us on Monday. However, she didn't. Because of that, I decided to send her a message again (remember I was super nice to her the whole time), and she didn't even read it the whole day. A this point this started to look really suspicious, especially after I talked with two other bloggers involved in the promotion and they said she wasn't answering them either. I still believed that maybe she is so busy and she doesn't have time to answer, but after one of the bloggers told me that Summer blocked her on Instagram and Facebook, I knew were scammed. I decided to look for her Instagram page, and of course I couldn't find it anymore, meaning she blocked me too. I found out later she blocked me on Facebook as well. 🙄 We all got really mad because we honoured our agreement and she didn't. We were so excited and promoting her shop and giveaway and she acted in such a disgusting way to us. I manage another account on Instagram in addition to mine, so I decided to use that account and check her Instagram. I was able to find it this way, and I was even more shocked after I watched her Insta story - she is looking for influencers to collaborate with AGAIN! It wasn't enough for her that she took advantage of us, but she is looking for new victims. At that point I knew I had to expose her - her online shop is called All Things Klay. I would highly suggest that you don't collaborate with her because you will get scammed. I would also suggest you don't buy from this shop because who knows if you would even get your items!
Honestly, I feel so good after exposing her. This never happened to me before but I guess you live and you learn. A question for all influencers/bloggers out there - have you ever been scammed by a brand? Let me know.
xoxo Sienna
