Influencer marketing is one of the most utilized social media channels today as their audience has faith in them which helps them influence their decisions. But what happens when that faith is broken due to lies or getting scammed by the influencer they follow? Their followers turn on them, and why wouldn’t they, they do feel betrayed after all.
Today, getting attention on social media and building a follower base is not easy. It’s now more competitive than ever. Although, many influencers often do weird and unethical things to gain popularity. Some try to take undue advantage of their followers while others even go as far as faking their lifestyle.
Here are 10 influencers that were exposed and called out for their lies and scams.
1. Influencers Exposed: Chinese Vlogger using facial filters
A Chinese vlogger, Qiao Biluo, was caught using a facial filter that made her look younger and more appealing. She was exposed due to a technical glitch that occurred during a live stream. When the glitch occurred, the viewers realized that she was actually a 58 years old woman that was using a facial filter that made her look younger and draw more attention.
2. Influencers Exposed: Influencer couple asking money from followers
An influencer couple on Instagram, Elena Engelhardt and Catalin Onc own an Instagram page by the name Another Beautiful Day Official. The couple desired to go on a vacation to Africa, but instead of putting out the money themselves for the trip, they asked their followers to raise $11000. This sparked outrage from their followers, they even called them “egoistical brats.”
3. Influencers Exposed: YouTuber lying about her age
Daniella Cohn gained a lot of attention in 2019 as conversations about her posts and age were often being discussed on the internet. Turn out she was lying about her age she was just 13 years old. Along with her age, she also lied about being pregnant. Although, she was exposed by her own father who share quite the detailed post on Facebook as he was fed up with how his daughter was portraying herself online which he definitely didn’t approve of.
4. Influencers Exposed: Influencer lying about her lifestyle
The Chinese influencer Lisa Li often boasted about her luxurious lifestyle on social media. Although, she was living in an apartment which she turned into a huge mess. She was eventually exposed by her landlord who filmed a video showing the devastating state of the apartment. The video shows moldy food, dog excrement, unwashed utensils, and more. The influencer apologized to her landlord for the filthy state of the apartment and got started cleaning.
5. Influencers Exposed: Influencer’s fake vegan lifestyle
Yovana Mendoza, an Instagram influencer promoted a vegan lifestyle and even offered a detox program for $99. Although turn out that she herself wasn’t sticking to the lifestyle she was promoting. She was accidentally caught eating fish by a follower of hers who posted the video online. Yovanna later issued an apology explaining the vegan diet has led to health issues and her doctors advised her to include meat and eggs in her diet.
6. Influencers Exposed: Scamming followers with fake money-making deals
Kayla Massa mass promoted her scheme by sharing photos of stacks of money and screenshots of her bank balance. She would tell her fans that if they allowed her acquaintance use their bank account for an” undisclosed, but brief period of time, “they could make as much as $5,000. She had her targets mail in their depleted bank cards along with their personal identification number (PIN), which she then used to transfer enormous sums of money. She and her accomplices in this fraud were ultimately apprehended by the authorities.
7. Influencers Exposed: The controversial behavior of the D’Amelio sisters
After a YouTube video titled Dinner with The D’Amelios surfaced in which the sisters were disrespectful to their private chef, the sisters lost a significant portion of their TikTok fan base. Additionally, Charli’s followers were not pleased by her complaint that she had not yet reached 100 million during the meal. In response to their behavior, fans were quite frustrated. She claimed in her explanation that she and her co-authors are fully accepting of accountability for their conduct and acknowledge that they could have done a lot better with the edits.
8. Influencers Exposed: Agreeing to promote a fake weight loss drink
After being secretly caught endorsing a bogus weight reduction drink that they were told contained hydrogen cyanide, three British influencers came under fire for their apparent lack of ethics. The investigation by the BBC and the mysterious Irish presenter Blindboy found that Lauren Goodger, Mike Hassini, and Zara Holland all admitted that they’d post Instagram advertisements. A spokesman for Goodger claimed the huge payment promised was a deliberate attempt to persuade her to join the meeting, while Holland claimed she was unaware of what hydrogen cyanide was.
9. Influencers Exposed: Influencer lying about having cancer
According to Belle Gibson, the holistic diet she followed helped her fight cancer. She also put out a cookbook from which she claimed fans’ money would be donated to charitable organizations. However, in March 2015, it was reported that Gibson had not actually given any of the $300,000 she had raised to charity. As a result of fan inquiries and subsequent criticism, she ultimately came clean and said she had never been diagnosed with cancer. She was hit with a $410,000 fine by a federal court in 2017 for faking charitable donations she never made.
10. Influencers Exposed: Selling a fake social media crash course
Aggie Lal fans weren’t quite given what they had hoped for. She apparently disappeared after being paid, citing health issues and Wi-Fi disruptions as her reasons. The other half of her courses allegedly consisted of making students advertise her and the course’s merchandise. After her post went viral, she had no choice but to start giving money back.
How to choose the right influencer?
Partnering with the right influencer can significantly boost your brand’s social media presence and ROI. But finding the top influencers is not easy, there are just too many fake influencers now. These fake influencers buy social media followers and engagement to seem influential. It’s best to use a follower audit tool to weed out such users so you don’t become a victim of influencer fraud and such fake influencers get exposed. One such tool is FollowerAudit.
FollowerAudit
FollowerAudit is a follower tracker that can expose fake influencers within minutes with accurate results and also helps you track, monitor, and analyze any public Twitter account’s followers. It can be a great tool to analyze the authenticity of an influencer’s follower base. Using the other features, you can further analyze how frequently they engage and get many other useful insights.
Key features of FollowerAudit
- Identify fake followers and bots
- Analyze Twitter followers
- Track Twitter follower growth in real-time
- Compare Twitter followers
- Track Twitter unfollows in real-time
The basic premium plan starts at $29.99. FollowerAudit also offers a free plan that you can use to test its features.
Wrapping Up
Analyzing the key metrics of an influencer’s social media account is the first step to finding the right brand advocate and the authenticity of the followers in one of those key metrics. Get started with FollowerAudit today and get fake influencers exposed.
Raghav is a talented content writer with a passion for creating informative and interesting articles. With a degree in English Literature, Raghav possesses an inquisitive mind and a thirst for learning. Raghav is a fact enthusiast who loves to unearth fascinating facts from a wide range of subjects. He firmly believes that learning is a lifelong journey and he is constantly seeking opportunities to increase his knowledge and discover new facts. So make sure to check out Raghav’s work for a wonderful reading.
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