Category: D Rating

Our Grade – D

An untrustworthy service.

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At a Glance

Though Firing Table has been around for a long time, there is a complete lack of transparency around the business and the site hasn’t been updated in years. There are many complaints about the business in the Minneapolis Better Business Bureau page, which is actually quite rare for an Instagram growth service.

Business Analysis

Pricing

Firing Table’s prices are charged per-week. What type of business charges on a weekly basis? Those that are scammy and trying to trick you. These prices are quite expensive considering it’s just a basic SaaS service, at best.

Service Details

The website claims they’ll get you “real fans and followers” but, truthfully, there’s no way to guarantee that. They say you’ll get a “60% interaction rate” which I think means a 60% reciprocal interaction rate which is impossible to guarantee and is extremely high unless you are a model.

The rest of their offerings are run-of-the-mill and, even if they do work flawlessly, quite expensive.

Integrity & Reputation

The business has been around for a long time. This stands at odds with the complete lack of web presence outside of the main website.

There are, however, many complaints on the Better Business Bureau’s website. You can see a small clustering of fake reviews in the spring of 2018 and then an avalanche of truthful negative complaints between the two pages they’re listed on. The majority of complaints haven’t been responded to.

This business has always struck me as a bit of a scam and I’m surprised it’s so hard to find these negative reviews.

Minneapolis Better Business Bureau

Conclusion

This is one of the few surviving “original” scammy services. It seems to be run in a dishonest way. The only reason it’s mentioned on so many blog sites is because it has a very distinctive (though awful) name that hasn’t been changed in years. Definitely skip this one.

Our Grade – D+

A shadowy site that has hints of life but probably is a ripoff.

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At a Glance

SpectSocial is a new service shrouded in secrecy and painfully-obvious fake reviews. The pricing suggests that it is a human-touch growth service, but it’s highly likely that it’s a basic bot.

Business Analysis

Pricing

SpectSocial has very expensive plans which intend to indicate that there are humans working on your account. I highly doubt that humans will be working on your account.

Even compared to category-leader Ampfluence, this is a pretty awful deal and I’d be shocked if people are actually paying for this.

Service Details

The Elite and Pro plans provide whatever you’d expect to see from a service costing 1/3 or 1/2 the price. It’s unclear what the value proposition is here.

It’s very likely that this is a one-man operation that just happened to be really late to the game.

Integrity & Reputation

The header of the website contains an “As Seen on MSNBC” banner. This type of thing should be illegal because it’s incredibly misleading. This company didn’t pop up on MSNBC the minute the owner created the website, but the banner has been there forever.

Next, Trust Pilot. The reviews look good, but then you realize that all the good ones are clustered around May 2019 and that they’re all generic. Some of them even reference being customers for “years.” That’s not possible.

Obviously paid shill reviews

Conclusion

If a service that has barely been around for a year offering services at the same price point as Ampfluence was actually worthwhile, maybe you’d actually have seen them appear on MSNBC.

This space really doesn’t need new players, especially ones that lie on their website and deceive customers. However, if the owner submits proof of having more than 100 active customers, I will upgrade this rating to the C range!

Our Grade: D

This service may be functional but isn’t a wise choice.

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At a Glance

Using language borrowed from other websites, PrettyFitMelanin claims to be the #1 growth service. Actually, you’re just paying for a feature on a niche fitness page with 700k+ followers.

Business Analysis

Pricing

This service offers a one-time feature in exchange for a $20 Paypal donation.

Service Details

The service is somewhat unique and, ultimately, the provider is forthcoming about how your profile will be promoted. The issue with this type of service is that if you’re only going to be promoted on one single account, and that account’s owner has gone so far as to create a website in order to sell features, you can be assured that the quality of followers will be low and one-dimensional.

Integrity & Reputation

This is a new business dependent on an Instagram account which is centered around soft-core pornography (i.e. the “hot girls” niche). The marketing copy is generic and is a huge exaggeration for what is actually offered.

The payment processing is extremely shady as you’re asked to “donate” to GymDeity (an associated business) and then send @prettyfitmelanin a DM on Instagram. When you donate money on Paypal, you have no buyer protections. Though the service probably functions, you’d have no recourse if it didn’t.

Conclusion

Paying for features on Instagram can be a unique, albeit expensive, way to grow your account. Donating $20 to some random company on Paypal to be featured on a “hot girl” Instagram page is an awful idea, as it’s highly unlikely that the audience will be the demographic you are looking to target for your business.