[HN Gopher] Who's running the Vincere bot network on Instagram? ___________________________________________________________________ Who's running the Vincere bot network on Instagram? Author : mbellotti Score : 30 points Date : 2021-07-11 20:00 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (medium.com) (TXT) w3m dump (medium.com) | lemedro wrote: | https://archive.is/RQ6A0 | tyingq wrote: | Poked around on vincerewears.com to see what was there. | | There's a widget that pops up periodically that says _" Someone | in {city}, {country} purchased {product}"_. It looked a bit | fishy, so I poked around the source code. | | Sure enough, the faked purchases are in the source code. They | don't even bother to load them via XHR to at least give some | semblance of legitimacy. Lol. | | s = [{ "sn_city": "Pompano Beach", "sn_country": "United States", | "sn_discount": null, "sn_first_name": "Erick", "sn_handle": | "natu-t-shirt", "sn_img": "https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1 | \/0283\/5824\/6448\/products\/product- | image-1183227221.jpg?v=1600916205", ... | | From: https://sales-notification- | cdn.makeprosimp.com/v1/published/... | Aulig wrote: | Such a scummy thing to do - sadly effective and all too common. | Also illegal depending on your legislation. | joeblow21 wrote: | Most influencers buy bot followers to scam advertisers so what | goes around comes around I guess | smoldesu wrote: | Looks like GoDaddy is providing the domain name for a lot of | these fronts. Someone could cause an awful lot of ruckus by | emailing abuse@godaddy.com with a list of the offending sites | (Urban Ice, Hype Authority and Brute Impact are still online: you | can find the links in the article). | | Just food for thought. | rPlayer6554 wrote: | If overpriced merch were abuse, kanyewest(dot)com and | supremesclothingonline(dot)com would have been taken down a | long time ago.... | pc86 wrote: | What exactly is the abuse in this case? | cloudking wrote: | "Thousands of fake Instagram accounts are powering scams | targeting influencers. The scams are run by different people, but | are the bots?" I'm trying to figure out what part of this story | is the scam. | | Shopify's business model encourages people to build dropshipping | sites, there are literally hundreds of thousands of them. They | promote plugins like Oberlo[1] that let you import products | directly from AliExpress into your store to markup and dropship. | They have blog posts[2] that teach you how to dropship. I feel | like the author is implying that dropshipping is a scam, well if | you are foolish enough to pay markup on items that you could | order yourself directly from AliExpress that's your own problem. | | I think the bot issue is highlighting that these "scammers" have | figured out a way to automate driving sales through influencer | marketing. However, any dropshipper could do the same thing | manually, and some likely are. Influencer marketing is basically | sending influencers your products to promote, in this case they | are asking them to purchase, but they are still getting real | products. Is that a scam? | | [1] https://www.shopify.com/oberlo | | [2] https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-start-dropshipping | teej wrote: | > if you are foolish enough to pay markup on items that you | could order yourself directly from AliExpress that's your own | problem | | How do you expect the average consumer to automatically know if | a product they're looking at is being resold from AliExpress? | tyingq wrote: | >How do you expect the average consumer to automatically know | if a product they're looking at is being resold from | AliExpress? | | I think that's probably a good question most of the time. On | this site (vincerewears.com), though, it's pretty obvious. | | First, the t-shirt is priced at $99, with no notion of brand | or why you might pay $100 for a t-shirt. Next, it has this | warning on the product page: _" CLOTHING ARE ASIAN SIZE. | KINDLY CHOOSE 1-2 SIZE BIGGER FROM YOUR US MEASUREMENT."_ | | And this on shipping policy: _" In regards to shipping, we | are still offering free worldwide shipping to nearly all | countries, however there will be delays. Our usual delivery | time is 15-40 business days, however please allow up to 60 | business days for delivery."_ | | So, 60 business days is, ugh 12 weeks? 3 months? Heh. | tylersmith wrote: | They can spend time discovering the product and then price- | shopping to find that AliExpress has the best deal, or they | can pay the premium of the dropshipper to skip all that and | just get the thing they want right now. | tyingq wrote: | >just get the thing they want right now. | | This particular site (vincerewears.com) has guidance that | usual shipping times are 15 to 40 business days, but to | expect 60 business days (3 months). | ALittleLight wrote: | Scam is probably not the right word for dropshipping. Though | dropshipping does seem like a parasitic activity that captures | the energy and capital of the dropshippers in order to increase | prices. | | The scam in this article seems to be the bots that try to trick | would be Instagram influencers into buying merchandise to sell | to their audience. As I understand it the bots are really just | trying to convince the influencers into buying the goods | themselves and the influencers don't get any cut of whatever | product they do sell. | tylersmith wrote: | > if you are foolish enough to pay markup on items that you | could order yourself directly from AliExpress that's your own | problem | | It's not necessarily foolish, they're providing market- | knowledge arbitrage which has value. If the reseller made me | aware of the product in the first place and I'm willing to | their price then the premium was the price I paid to not have | to discover the product on my own, and to not have to bother | with price comparison shopping. | | I know $15 is an agreeable price and I can buy it right here | right now instead of spending 30 minutes comparing vendors to | find that I could save $5 on AliExpress, or just never having | it at all because I didn't know about the product. | hwayne wrote: | Dropshipping itself looks totally legitimate, and there's | market value of selling things for a small markup. The | scammers in this case are doing a 500% markup. | hwayne wrote: | > Shopify's business model encourages people to build | dropshipping sites, there are literally hundreds of thousands | of them. They promote plugins like Oberlo[1] that let you | import products directly from AliExpress into your store to | markup and dropship. They have blog posts[2] that teach you how | to dropship. | | That's explicitly brought up in the article: | | >> These schemes are very easy to set up. Shopify has a number | of helpful tutorials on how to do it. [these were inline links] | And the margins on them can be quite significant if the | customer doesn't realize the brand is just a front. For example | here's a shirt Vincere is currently selling for $99, here's the | same shirt on AliExpress for $16. That's a markup of 500%. | | > I think the bot issue is highlighting that these "scammers" | have figured out a way to automate driving sales through | influencer marketing. However, any dropshipper could do the | same thing manually, and some likely are. Influencer marketing | is basically sending influencers your products to promote, in | this case they are asking them to purchase, but they are still | getting real products. Is that a scam? | | Also brought up in the article: | | >> Then on top of that if by chance someone does use your | ambassador code to buy something, most of these brands do not | have any affiliate marketing infrastructure... so they pocket | your promised commission too. | | EDIT: Also, later in the article, she discusses the second | layer of scamming here, which is botnet operators scamming the | dropship scammers. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-07-11 23:00 UTC)