In the age of digital media, scams have evolved to exploit unsuspecting victims in innovative ways. One such scheme has emerged under the guise of an influencer marketing service called Viralyft. This company claims to offer marketing services on prominent platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. However, numerous complaints suggest that after clients provide their payment details and their cards are charged, Viralyft goes silent without delivering on the promised services.
Viralyft is a fraudulent scam and a big operation defrauding advertisers of thousands.
What’s particularly insidious about this scam is its strategy. Viralyft typically charges nominal amounts, a tactic that relies on the assumption that many people, after realizing they’ve been duped, won’t consider it worth their time or effort to pursue refunds or lodge complaints for such “small” amounts. But this is a game of volume. With the vast number of people seeking influencer marketing services daily, these “nominal” amounts can cumulatively result in a lucrative scam, potentially raking in thousands of dollars.
But how does Viralyft attract its victims in the first place? The company appears to collaborate with questionable news outlets to boost its credibility. One such platform is OutlookIndia, a site that recently came under scrutiny. Data from AHRefs, a renowned digital marketing analytics tool, indicates that Google has recently demoted OutlookIndia, a potential indicator of the site’s diminishing trustworthiness.
For anyone seeking digital or influencer marketing services, it’s crucial to exercise caution. Before committing to any service or making a payment, thorough research is imperative. It’s essential to verify the credibility of both the service provider and any media outlets that endorse them. In the digital age, where scams like Viralyft can hide behind a façade of legitimacy, vigilance is more important than ever.
Here are some other types of scams or questionable practices to be wary of:
- Fake Followers and Engagement: Some services offer to boost an influencer’s followers or engagement numbers artificially. These numbers, however, are often just bots or inactive accounts, which means they don’t translate to genuine engagement or sales. Checking an influencer’s follower-to-engagement ratio can sometimes give clues; an account with hundreds of thousands of followers but only a few comments or likes per post can be a red flag.
- The “Loop Giveaway”: This involves multiple influencers teaming up for a giveaway, where each participant’s followers are required to follow all influencers in the “loop” to be eligible for the prize. While this can genuinely boost followers in the short term, they are often not engaged or genuinely interested in all the content from their new follows, leading to high unfollow rates after the giveaway ends.
- Influencer Impersonation: Scammers sometimes create fake accounts impersonating real influencers and approach brands for free products or payment. Brands end up sending products or money to the scammer, thinking they’re collaborating with a genuine influencer.
- Upfront Payment Scams: Some platforms or individuals might ask brands to pay upfront for influencer marketing services and then fail to deliver once they receive the payment.
- Misrepresentation of Metrics: Some influencers might use tools to fake their metrics and give an impression of higher engagement or reach than they genuinely have. Brands should always ask for screenshots of backend analytics or use third-party tools to verify metrics.
- Shady Affiliate Marketing: While affiliate marketing itself is legitimate, some influencers might promote products they don’t genuinely believe in just to get the commission. Authenticity can sometimes be gauged by seeing if the influencer uses the product or service themselves consistently, not just when they’re being paid to promote it.
- Non-disclosure of Partnerships: This is more unethical than a scam but still something to watch out for. Influencers are required by law in many countries to disclose paid partnerships or when they’ve received a product for free. Not doing so can mislead followers into thinking a promotion is a genuine endorsement.
Brands and individual followers alike should always do their due diligence before engaging in any transaction in the influencer marketing space. Asking for recommendations, reading reviews, and using third-party verification tools can help navigate this booming but sometimes murky world.
It is likely that platforms like Twitter are unaware of scammers like Viralyft riding their wave as they seem to operate independently and without the approval of social media platforms.