Sugar Daddies and Ambassador programs: What’s up With the Bots in My Insta DMs?

Words by Maia Ingoe (she/her)

His name is Antony Smith. His profile picture is of a bearded older white man, probably on a boat somewhere. And he’s sliding into my Instagram DMs with a “hello beautiful.”

The recipe differs. Sometimes the name is Steven, John, or Tanner. The profile picture features grey-haired men posing by an undetailed background or sometimes just a selfie. The message in my requests might start off with a “Hey pretty lady…” or a “Hi gorgeous…” Sometimes, I’ll get multiple requests in a week, all with spelling mistakes and bad grammar, offering a sugar daddy relationship.

Sugar daddies aren’t the only scams in my DMs, although they are by far the most numerous. There are messages from private accounts, saying they’re looking for ambassadors and asking me to DM a larger brand for more information. White women in suits request to follow me, promoting investment and cryptocurrency schemes that echo pyramid schemes.

My Instagram account is set to private and I don’t post anything abnormal for a 20-year-old university student. Almost every social media user has experienced a DM from an unfamiliar profile and most of us delete the request without replying. From my little corner of Instagram, I polled followers on whether they’d ever received a sugar daddy message as an example—over 80% tapped yes. Instagram has over 1.3 billion users worldwide: for scammers, that’s a gigantic field of targets who are only a follow and a DM away.

Sugar daddy scams seem to target younger people, and mostly women—but sugar mommies make the rounds as well. Some of mine directly referenced knowing “poor students” like myself needed money. Ambassador scams—starting contact with, “I love your account! Send @officialherteam a message ASAP”—target growing influencers and users with smaller accounts. I set out to reply to some of these scams and see how far they could take me.

aw, I’d love to be your sugar baby!

Tanner Reynolds, my first sugar daddy target, messaged me on a Friday, starting off with a polite, “Hey pretty lady, nice to meet you.” I followed his profile for a bit of background: his bio said “FORKS,”’ his picture was of a worker in front of a pine forest. Grainy, film-filtered photos of tattoos, beer, and hunting—the most recent one posted in 2020 and the rest older than 2016. He pulled off a grungier look than other sugar daddy profiles—by comparison, Anthony Smith’s profile showed someone who might actually have the money to support a random university student from another country. His pictures showed a man with thick grey hair and sunglasses, posing beside the sea. All six photos were posted on the same day—21 November 2021—and despite Anthony having over a thousand followers, only one person had liked each photo.

Tanner promised payments starting from $8000 for being his “sugar baby, sugar girl”—a sum that could pay the majority of my course fees for the year.

I replied on Wednesday and he immediately tried to call me. This shook me—I wasn’t expecting it, and I didn’t answer. He assured me that he was looking for a “mutual and virtual connection,” so the sugar baby relationship would remain online.

The next message told me to “relax my mind okay,” and assured me he was “really serious on this to make you happy”. Then came the jump away from Instagram, and Tanner asked to message on WhatsApp “so daddy can spoil you with $8000.”

WhatsApp was a favourite of the sugar daddies I messaged. After one or two messages, or even initially, the accounts send through a WhatsApp number and pressure you to text them on the encrypted messaging app for big cash payments. Messages from Steven Dye said, “Can we text more on WhatsApp hun… some other babies are disturbing me here that I don’t wanna text with,” while Anthony Smith repeatedly asked me if I had texted him yet, saying that he was waiting for me.

Tanner continued to convince me of his legitimacy as a sugar daddy and guaranteed that there would be no sexual activity required, only wanting to “keep my company as best friends.” When I asked about other sugar babies, he sent a video of a girl in a red Harley Davidson sweater saying, “Thank you for the $5000, after I got my bitcoin for verification, this is not a scam.” Bitcoin, apparently, was for the transaction charges. He messaged me repeatedly asking where I was from and my age, and sent multiple messages asking to message on WhatsApp. He tried calling again, and again I didn’t answer. This was by far the pushiest scammer I encountered, and I didn’t appreciate the invaded feeling.

Bitcoin was the reddest flag that there was a scam here. I asked other sugar daddies how they made their payment. Anthony Smith said over PayPal, while Steven Dye just sent an exact copy of an earlier paragraph about what he wants from a sugar baby—his intention being to “share[his] riches to the world also so [he] can be blessed by God almighty.”

By using a third-party website for transactions, sugar daddy scams send over fake payment receipts for thousands of dollars before asking us to pay smaller sums as transaction fees or charges. While there are legitimate sugar daddies out there, you won’t find them through an Instagram DM.

Instagram’s customer support page warns of romance scams, which build relationships through conversing online before asking for money, and scams of fake identity which also extort money—an example of this is the classic ‘Nigerian Prince’ scam. CERT NZ—the Government’s cyber security response team—also warns people of such scams, but expects the scams to be from someone who has gained a user’s trust before requesting money. While we are warned about scams of the generic kind, there is nothing that has details on the fake sugar daddy. 

Sure, lets collab! Tell me more about your brand.

I’ll admit, at first it’s flattering to be told I’m a perfect fit for a brand ambassador. This is the stuff that makes real Instagram influencers, and popularity is always enticing. Plus, who doesn’t love free or discounted stuff? Unfortunately, DMs from clothing ambassadors are often just as fake-as sugar daddies.

Usually, these find their way into our DMs through a random profile, asking us to message the main branded account about an ambassador opportunity. A generic woman’s profile—account now deleted—slid into my dms telling me she loved the look of my account, encouraging me to contact @officalherteam, a brand selling clothing imprinted with messages empowering women. Their feed was full of models posing in t-shirts saying, “Babes empower babes” and blocks of colour with phrases such as, “Girl, you’ve got this!”

The first few messages discussed Her Team’s mission and products, and with mutual followers it wasn’t hard to believe it was legitimate. When the account responded to my question about manufacturing with an automated reply, lacking an answer, it showed tell-tale signs of being a scam. They gave me a discount code and free shipping for the US and encouraged me to share this with followers on my story.

A few months on, @officialherteam has been long revealed as a scam: the account has been deleted, and the website has disappeared. Many of these brand ambassador scams encourage people to purchase goods with a discount code, rather than giving away free samples. The goods will either never arrive, or if they do, are cheaply-made knock-offs, resold on a scam website at a much higher price than their worth.

Ambassador scams can be connected with professional-fronting accounts and websites, making it hard to tell its trustworthiness. The fronts for Her Team, or other ambassador scams such as Belizza Desires jewellery or Freya Treasures, might seem elegant and put together, backed up by thousands of followers. A quick Google search should reveal whether other people have been scammed by these websites. The followers are likely bots, which also probably run the accounts messaging system. Check if the posts have a level of engagement expected for a large account: if it has thousands of followers but under a hundred likes, it’s a red flag.

Offers to collaborate with branded accounts are a type of scam Instagram describes as an ‘inauthentic seller.’ Their website says these accounts “may try to use under-priced items to lure buyers into a scam,” but as with sugar daddies, there is limited information about the kind of accounts that specifically ask us to be ambassadors.

Opportunities to earn money easily seem like a godsend, especially when dropped right into our DMs. But most of the time, scam accounts are easy to judge. Bad grammar, dodged questions, fake followers, messages that seem automated, and an entire feed posted in one day are all signs of an inauthentic account. Requests for you to put money down first, as well as asking to message on another platform, are the ultimate red flags. In the end, sketchy insta sugar daddies and schmoozer ambassador programs aren’t worth the time of day.