Exposing The Largest Creator Scam on YouTube
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- Опубліковано 28 бер 2024
- TZAudios is not my hero
- Become A Pookie: / @shteve.mp4
- / shteve_mp4
- / shteve_mp3
- / shteve.mp4
- / shteve.mp4
- Second Channel: / @slowthanaturtle
Today, I uncovered one of the largest ongoing creator scams on UA-cam. This scam is ran by a microphone company known as TZ Audios or Tech Zone Audio Products on Amazon. - Ігри
In case anyone is curious, I talked to them further once this video was uploaded. All they’ve been doing is writing some useless Wattpad fanfiction. They added the newer emails to my page but wouldn’t you know it? They left out a couple of emails 💀. Im not gonna make a followup, I just thought this was sort of funny.
As a cosplayer and self photographer, I got sent a ton of these for green screens so I can "evolve my graphic design workflow" and one of them got mad when I didn't respond
😭 should’ve responded just to fan the flanes
@@shteve.mp4 there was one that straight up confused me with another black cosplayer. The only one I responded to and that was a fun experience 😬😭🤣
I am surprised that such a massive brand would allow their distributors to do this, i mean its actively ruining there reputation
Money clearly speaks louder to them 😪
Their*
*their
Their*
*They're
This sounds like those instagram ambassadors who are like "oh yeah we love your account and want you to be our ambassador" only to be told you have to buy the products and show it off
I enjoy when I get those messages, seeing as how my account is private. I'm so curious what they "love" about it, or what they think makes me a good fit for the product 😂 red flags abound! Just like with this scam.
@@punchdrunkassassin trueee i have an art account with 0 photos of my face in there and im still getting "you are perfect ambassador for our jewelry!" type of messages like yo do you want me to dress my characters on those or sum???
@@punchdrunkassassinthat might be on purpose. There's a scambaiting channel I follow and they've talked about how scammers will blast way more ppl than they can actually talk to. So messages that have bad English or that don't make sense filter or the skeptical ppl so they can spend their time in the ppl who are less cautious.
Ok here’s the deal: with ANY job, including influencer sponsorships, never EVER accept a product that will be “reimbursed”. Sometimes, the company is just a bad company with poor management like this one, but other times they will direct you to a scam site, have you put in your money, then send you a bad check to “reimburse” you. And by the time you find out, your money’s gone. Do NOT purchase products from a company if they promised to give it to you for free. Give them a shipping address (a PO Box preferably) and they should ship it directly to you. After all, if you own the company, why can’t you ship directly to an influencer? Shouldn’t you control the stock? Shouldn’t you have stock on hand set aside specifically for this purpose? The company should be responsible for purchasing any items that they hired you to use, whether it’s a job or a sponsorship. Period. The only exception is if the company asks you to bring your own laptop, but in those cases they only give you a list of acceptable laptop specs and you can go out and purchase it on your own from like Best Buy or an Apple Store or something. At no point in any job or sponsorship should money ever go from you to the company you’re working with. The money should only flow from the company to you, as they are the ones purchasing YOUR labor.
tbh some who want u to buy their stuff on amazon are legit. ive done it like 4x and just use a different amazon account. i was already wanting the product tho and just checked their site to see if they do the "for a honest review we give u a "gift" ". i do give a honest review, one got a 1 star and accepted it (while fixing my problem so i changed it later anyway) and idk. it was nice since i wanted the product anyway but yikes. at least its easy to spot a fake review.
TZ Audios prey on smaller creators because we don't have the experience with sponsors like larger creators do. They can go to hell for all we care.
Real! Screw these assholes 😤
4:54 scammer payback moment 💀
You should join our shady and scammy corporation
Rules: Do not question it being shady and scammy
What •-•
That’s crazy. I got an email about one of these microphones. I knew I was making a good idea by not buying into it.
"Who tf is Robert!?!" Made me laugh harder than it should
I got an email from them a few months ago and ignored it thinking it was a scam. Kinda sad I never got to meet drake or gabriella 😔
Part of me hopes that one guy is playing all these parts 😞
This is a little more interesting than a “scam”. While you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get your money, they will send it.
What they’re doing is creating a system of “influencers” to advertise and leave reviews for their products on Amazon. This helps in the rankings and is huge for business. But it’s completely against Amazon’s TOS to incentivise or reimburse people for product reviews.
Advice to all UA-camrs. It’s really tempting to take the first deal that comes your way. Objectivity often goes out of the window the second you think you’re getting something for free and you’re making money. Glad you didn’t make the mistake, and good work for spreading the word.
I would encourage your to report this to Amazon. It will destroy their business.
Yeah, I figured they were trying to game the amazon system. I have reported their store page to Amazon and forwarded my emails to their fraud department, we can only hope that something comes out of that.
If you think Amazon cares about fake reviews, or that you could even reach a real human being to complain about it, you're wrong.
I left a bad review on a new product and the seller threatened me. I complained to Amazon and I got a cut and paste response and my review was deleted a few weeks later.
@@Ryan-The-Grifter - an Amazon customer
me - someone who makes 100k a year selling my stuff on Amazon.
sure dude, please tell us more about the inner workings on Amazon.
@@LeviClay I could spend all day trying to think of douchy responses to my comment and not think of one as douchy as that.
@@Ryan-The-Grifter mate, you could spend your LIFE trying, and you'd still have no qualifications to speak on the subject.
It really is sad how many scams there are on this site
Yeah, but thats just the internet nowadays. People need to make money and most refuse to work for it
I actually gotten an email from them back in July 2023 (actually 2 of them). I knew something was wrong so I never even responded to them. They were contacting me because of my music channel which is just a nightcore/mashup channel. After watching this video and seeing how they treat people, it makes me glad I did not respond to them because I did not want to deal with them putting me on their "scammer" list. Idk how they even expect me to get 500 comments, I rarely get comments at all on either my main or my music channel.
I thank my lucky star for the fact these scammers are either not willing to learn how to make viruses or prefer to stay on the edge of legality. I'm not that educated on hacking and such yet but looord if you can convince people to click your shady link you're already in. I'm still not banking on them all being that ignorant though so no email links for me lol. Well unfortunately you can't stop clicking on emails entirely in this day and age, but it is wild how much can be done with a link or attachment
That is true, I never really thought about how easy it could have been for them to screw me over with the link. I don’t click links when its instantly obvious its a scam but this time they caught me lacking 😪
@@shteve.mp4 Yeah it's unavoidable if you're in any kind of online business. Many legitimate emails look very scammy, and most tells for scams are pretty easy to avoid if you're already smart enough to attach a virus to something. I figure all you can do as a regular internet user is use common sense and get a hard drive to regularly back up all your important stuff to in case you get the attention of someone with skill. And of course regularly run an antivirus
These types of scammers wouldn't do that. They see a system (amazon reviews/ranking) and get itching to game it. They think they found a way around the rules and that means its perfectly fine to do. It's also why they get so mad when someone calls them out on it. They spent a lot of effort working out how this was allowed and if you question that you are basically calling them stupid and they take it as an insult.
I got an email from a "company" that wanted to give me a stellar mic in exchange for making a video with it.
Because they said that my videos reflected their product's area of use.
I didn't really understand why I would need such a mic, since my content doesn't involve this type of mic set up.
Anyhow I decline their offer, which I see now in retrospect was very good thing to do.
I'm glad you covered this because the same company approached me as well but then I realized that they wanted me to pay I was like "lol nah" and declined. Like why am I PAYING for a sponsorship? just gimme the product lol
The scammer list on their website reminds me of the big name sinners list that was on Livejournal to document "sinful" Harry Potter fanfiction writers. The result of the list was that everybody wanted to get on there. I want to be on the scammer list now. TZ Audios you wanna hit me up?
Wasn't paying for reviews one of the things that get you kicked off Amazon? Wonder if anyone's brought this to their attention.
I have reported them to Amazon’s fraud department/security team and now all we have to do is hope they get taken down at some point.
amazon doesnt consider this to be paying for reviews since you have to buy the item with your own money then get reimbursed. and a company sending you a free item in return for a review also isn’t considered paying for a review
Dude your videos are so good, especially for a small channel! Please keep making them! 🙏
You got a new subscriber! Also I just checked their website and you're on their list now too! :D
This was great content. If you only really do gaming I think you have a brilliant story telling voice and a fantastic energy to go down the route of story telling and commentary. This was the first video I have seen of yours and it was great.
I received one of those emails a few months ago, which was hilarious to me because all my videos are uncommentated gameplay footage. I've never used a mic in any video I've uploaded to my channel! That immediately told me the "we've watched your videos" line was bogus, clearly they didn't!
If it sounds like a scam, looks like a scam and operates like a scam, it is probably a scam. The fact creators don't follow that simple rules is just surprising.
Don't know this brand but their mics look like an Audio Technica rip off lol
Key secret of every successful company: keeping a public naughty list
I have received the same email and knew it was a scam once I saw there website
IKR, sounds like they're about to release a new update SOMEDAY and hopefully I'm included in the patch notes.
OMG I GOT AN EMAIL LIKE THIS A WHILE AGO! i ended up not accepting the deal bc it felt like a scam and i'm glad to see my instincts were right
you know it's crazy when even i got this email
Wow that microphone was super epic! 🎉❤😊
Even clicking any of those links seem wrong to me. I never want to open a link, or a file from an email
if it ain't got no 3.5mm, i want no parts of it i'm dat cheap 🤣
This is just.. Insanity😳
The scammers list on their website is now gone and they've added the following message:
"To be honest, we don't want to have too much interaction with these people. Additionally, to protect their privacy, we will keep the list hidden.
If a sufficient number of requests for disclosure are made, we will also respect their opinions and make all the lists public again.
****Hidden 34 Individuals****"
That list has been hidden for a while, though there is a wayback machine archive showing the original list. It was just a bunch of faces with their country right beside them
18:45 Dropshippers?
Them shaming the people not falling for the scan and saying those people are scammers is so goofy.
every sentence he wrote is structured like german ones and its driving me crazy
I didnt read the title before seeing the thumbnail bruh 😭
I got an email from them (pretty sure the guy said his name was John or something), they didnt even offer me a mic, just said "sign up for this and we'll put money into advertising a video. And if that video gets 100 comments we'll pay you (I think it was) $1000", and then they also told me about this referral program thing where you get $100 everyone you get to sign up. Didnt even bother replying to them, just blocked them and went on with my day
Yeah, they reached out to me too, they gave me all those instructions but I just gave them my address and said, if you want to send it go ahead, if you want it back after the review, pay for the label and I'll send it back, otherwise have a good day. Never heard back from them :)
sometimes these people will charge back lol
Aye bru I’m so glad I ain’t take the deal 😂😂
This video really should go viral 👍
Hey Shteve first time seeing your face and just wanted to ask, when you were younger did you happen to live in a small town in Tennessee? You look and sound so familiar...
Unfortunately no. I moved to California when I was 3 and lived here ever since.
we do things according to the terms
love the content man keep it up
Thank you!
The second you have to take out your credit card for something you're supposed to be making money off of, it's a scam lol
4:10 Why I hate sponsorships
These are the types of people that will get litigious when called out so just be very careful. I doubt these people actually would but get yourself some media liability coverage if you intend on making lots of vids about different scams. Really appreciate the video and warning here. If it seems really sketch and there’s lots of spelling errors and other things that are off about their communications, it’s probably too good to be true.
Ive been talking to them further after I uploaded this video. All he’s doing is literally writing essay fanfictions about me being Batman with my community 😭
You deserve 500 comments on this video.
dude fake/shady sponsors is basically part of the tutorial of how to be a youtuber
anyone should know it like school teaching safety
oof, i better not get scammed :(
Don’t worry, it’s usually pretty obvious when it’s a scam. Although it took me a second to figure it out, I still did after just researching them for half a second 😭
@@shteve.mp4 XD
A Behringer C1 is all you need lmao
Anyone know where TZ Audio is based out of anyways? They claim it’s California but their emails sound more like they come from Nigeria or something ngl
In CaleyNZTV’s now deleted video, he showed a glimpse of a site that located them in Shanghai, China. This could also not be 100% accurate but I believe it more than California.
New sub :D also I have the same microphone as you
Thank you! Since you have the same microphone, what dot at the bottom do you have yours set to? I'm trying to see if theres a better setting since I always seem to peak my microphone while recording.
@@shteve.mp4 I talk vey low so my friends complain unless I have it at the last dot :p but I feel like the middle always work do others
@@JanetLiz Yeah, that's what I'm using. I guess I just have to be a little quieter 😭
@@shteve.mp4 yo can try a noise supresor, not sure what you use to record your videos but to just level your voice a bit?
@@JanetLiz I use Audacity and sometimes OBS. I do limit my voice on OBS but for some reason never came to the realization I should do the same on Audacity 😭.
Shteve, have you ever watched China Illinois?
No, I've actually never heard of it.
Oh, dang. A character on there says "Shteve" instead of "Steve."
So that's what I thought you named your channel after, lol.
Oh I see 😭. No, my name comes from my French math teacher. His accent was so strong that he sometimes would say “Shteve” instead of “Steve” and that kind of stuck with me.
steve
Trevor
@@shteve.mp4 borgar
Papas fritas
@@shteve.mp4 pizza
Hope this video blows up
Me too 🙏
im new i enjoyed very much from scotland with love
Thank you! Glad I was able to entertain 😌
@@shteve.mp4 and inform
Actually, though, you should absolutely go get a toilet paper sponsor for a bad video game piece
Juat waiting for Charmin ultra soft to hit me up 😤
Just subbed
I heard Comments are good for the UA-cam Algorithm, but which Fossil did you take along the way?
Increase your audio a bit, other than that video's pretty cool
Tried to get me 2 years ago
i'm happy with my Fifine mic 🥶🥶
I keep seeing that on TikTok. Is it actually any good? I don't want to believe all the brand shills 😭
i don't use tiktak, is it that common on there?? i bought mine with an arm stand for 40€, actually very good mic. I'm not into mics so idk if it's any good. I have some videos on my channel, you can maybe see if my voice hears good or not
@@SORC_ONE It's being HEAVILY promoted on TikTok right now. Creators are getting the product for free and just telling people to buy it and whatever. Idk if its still going on now, but whenever I see an ad campaign like that I usually think the product is a sham
damn... idk about it, i bought it like 2 years ago, now i'm curious, i'll check it rn if it's a scam or not. Maybe another mic scam video?? 🗿
@@SORC_ONE I doubt it's a scam, just probably not as good as everyone is making it out to be 😭
Welp... I just got scammed. Fuck
Insanely disappointed. I already moved onto austrian audio anyways.
Good video man
Thank you!
I got this offer before and was so confused.
Why are you coming to a creator with 2,000 subs and makes random videos every now and then.
I felt like a scam, and i dont need a new mic, so i just let it be.
You actually have 100 comments talking about the mic now
hey schteve, good job
Petition to get this video 500 comments ❤
WOOOOOW
This is shady and i hope you reported them to amazon to review this way of marketing
Yes I have reported them. We just gotta hope Amazon does something now some day
Hey steve
Hello Diego👋
Investing at 6k likes ts crazy bro 💀💀💀
Steve
Setux
@@shteve.mp4 9 + 10 = ...
@@setux. 21 😳
You're epic bro ❤🎉
Thank you!
Hi I subscribed
Hello, thank you!
😍😍😍🤑🤑🤑
yellow
Blue
pink
who the fuck is robert
hi
hello
HELO
HOLA
f1rst
not even close brother. third to be exact by at least 12 minutes.
@@freakklomp i know 😎
your on the scam list now lmao boo hoo
Just a suggestion from someone who stumbled on your channel: Stop the cuts. Write a script, stick to it.
Pleasant Green also made a video about a scam like this! Stay safe out there guys 🫡
I Iove how the biggest insult anyone can throw at the usa is pointing out Biden is their president. 😂
better than trump