Have you been approached to become an Instagram brand ambassador?
Or have you been asked to complete an Instagram brand ambassador application?
Unfortunately, things might not be as great as they seem.
In this blog post, I’m going to be exposing the Instagram brand ambassador scam & helping you to figure out whether the opportunity you’ve received is indeed legit or not.
Plus I’ll also share with you a free method that you can use to earn from Instagram legitimately (hint: it’s the same method most of the influencers use to rake in all their cash).
The Ambassador Application Scam Explained | The Pay For Shipping Scam Explained | Is My Instagram Brand Ambassador Opportunity Legit? | A Better Legitimate Way To Earn From Instagram
Instagram Brand Ambassador Application Scam
There are 2 main variations of the Instagram brand ambassador scam that I have seen. There’s an Instagram brand ambassador application scam, and there’s a “just pay for shipping” scam.
First, we’ll cover the brand ambassador application scam. It seems that brand ambassador application scam is most common & being most heavily promoted.
The application scam is pretty simple. An Instagram profile which allegedly represents a company (often a big name company) will reach out to you and ask you to become an ambassador of their products.
They’ll either mention you in a comment and ask you to contact them, or they’ll send you a direct message themselves.
Either way, the scam itself always goes down in the DM, and this is the first red-flag.
Typically most companies/businesses who are looking for brand ambassadors will not do their dealings via direct message on Instagram.
Instead, they tend to work via email.
If you don’t have an email listed on your profile, then more often than not they simply won’t bother contacting you because as far as they’re concerned, you don’t do promotions, and they won’t want to waste time convincing you.
After all, why would a business want to spend time trying to convince a user to promote for them, when there’s a plethora of users who already offer promotions & are easily accessible?
They wouldn’t – and if somebody is messaging you out of the blue, it’s likely because they’re trying to take advantage of your brand ambassadorship inexperience to scam you.
But anyway, whatever way they contact you, they’ll make their opportunity sound really great.
They’ll likely mention that you’ll get free products & they’ll claim that you’ll either be paid a set fee per promotion or that you’ll be paid commissions for any sales you generate.
Either way, they’ll make it sound great & very lucrative. They’ll do their best to get you excited about the potential opportunity.
However, after confirming that you’d like to get started, they’ll then inform you that you need to complete an Instagram brand ambassador application.
They’ll claim that the application filters out the serious people from those who aren’t really interested in the opportunity. They’ll claim that they don’t want time-wasters.
The problem?
Upon getting through the application you’ll discover that you need to pay a fee in order to submit it, and this is where the scam lies.
You should NEVER have to pay money to become an Instagram brand ambassador, or to become any brand ambassador for that matter.
If a company wants you to promote their products then they should cover all the costs associated with you doing so (and any legitimate company would do that).
After all, by promoting their products, you’re helping them generate sales. You’re making them money… So it doesn’t make sense to charge you for you to help them.
The reality, though, is that the whole thing is just a scam. There isn’t really any brand ambassadorship opportunity & instead, the person contacting you is just trying to make some money at your expense by tricking you into completing a fake application.
The profile that contacted you will be an unofficial (or made-up) account.
And if they contacted you via email, then the email address that they’ve used has likely been spoofed to make it seem like you’re being contacted by an official representative.
But if you’re having to pay money upfront, it’ll be a scam – 100%.
There’s simply no need to pay any money upfront to earn money by promoting products on Instagram because you can do it for free by becoming an affiliate, which you can learn more about here.
The Instagram Pay For Shipping Scam
Alongside the Instagram brand ambassador application scam, there’s also another scam being heavily promoted on Instagram, known as the “just pay for shipping” scam.
From what I’ve read online this scam has caught a LOT of people out.
This scam involves somebody, claiming to be from a brand, contacting you and claiming that they like your content and would really love for you to promote for their company.
The conversation will go back & forth & just like the application scam, they’ll make their opportunity sound really fun & lucrative.
They’ll tell you that they want to give you some products & that they want you to post photos of yourself using the products & tagging their account in the description.
Then they’ll send you to their “official website” and on it, you’ll see their products and they’ll all appear to be pretty expensive (usually the products will be something like luxury watches).
But you won’t need to pay for the products because the person that reached out to you will have given you a discount code so that you can get them at a 100% discount.
All you need to do is cover the shipping costs.
Sounds great, right?
You’ll be able to get those high-priced luxury watches sent to you by just covering the shipping costs – and you’ll even be told that you’ll be able to keep them afterwards.
The problem, though, is that the watches will never arrive.
The whole thing is an elaborate scam. The company will be a complete fake & the website accompanying it is just a bogus website that’s been set up purely for the scam.
The moment you pay for the shipping, you’ll have fallen victim to the scam.
As mentioned in the last section of this blog post, you should NEVER have to pay money in order to get the opportunity to promote something for a company.
You can promote things for companies for free (and get paid handsomely for doing so) by becoming an affiliate, which you can learn about in my guide here.
Is My Brand Ambassador Opportunity Legit?
Have you already been approached by somebody asking you to become a brand ambassador?
Have they asked you to complete you an Instagram brand ambassador application, or to cover the costs of shipping to get sent products to promote for them?
If so, it’s likely a scam.
But there’s one easy way to tell – and that’s whether or not you’re required to pay money upfront in order to get started with the brand ambassadorship opportunity.
Regardless of what they claim the money is to cover, you should NEVER have to pay money upfront in order to promote products for companies on Instagram.
By promoting the products for a company you are helping them to generate sales, so if anybody should cover any costs it should be them, not you.
A Better (Legitimate) Way To Earn From Instagram
Brand ambassador opportunities can be an OK way to earn from Instagram, but in all honesty, they can be a bit of a hassle to manage especially if you want to make good money.
As far as I’m concerned there’s a better way, and that’s by becoming an affiliate.
By becoming an affiliate you can simply join an affiliate network & get instant access to thousands of products & services to promote from all sorts of different companies.
There’s no need to keep having to chat backwards & forwards to arrange a deal like you need to do with brand ambassadorship opportunities.
As an affiliate, you can just sign up, promote & earn.
And if you’re interested in becoming an affiliate & learning how you can make money from it using Instagram then I’d highly recommend you check out Wealthy Affiliate which is a place that provides you with everything you need to get started.
You can also check out my own free guide on affiliate marketing right here.
But whatever you decide to do I just truly hope that my blog post here has helped to prevent you from falling victim to an Instagram brand ambassador scam.
If you have any comments or questions you can also feel free to leave them below & I’ll do my best to respond back to you as quickly as I can.
Hello! I had the experience where someone contacted me and offered me to be a brand ambassador. Foolishly, I agreed and paid the shipping cost. However, my items did end up arriving, and they look great! The customer service was incredibly supportive, because when one of my items was mixed up, they ended up replacing it with something else, for free. What do you think of that? Is it legit?
It sounds like you got very lucky, Erica 🙂