Categories
C Rating instagram

Creative Talent Agency Instagram Growth Service Review

Our Grade – C

You’re going to pay $250/mo for someone to run a bot on your account.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

Creative Talent Agency is a bespoke marketing agency that happens to offer an Instagram growth service. We’re in no position to comment on their other services but we will apply some of our trust tests to their Instagram growth business. At $250 per month, it had better pass all of them!

Business Analysis

ItemResult
Growth Type“Dedicated account manager”
Quality of ServiceUnknown
Business Registry / LocationUnable to determine
Traceable TeamBrigette Cooper
Functioning PhoneYes
Longevity2+ Years
Doesn’t Misuse IG BrandingTrue
Active BlogNo
External SitesFacebook
Dashboard / Account ManagementNo
Offsite TestimoniesNo
Forthcoming About Password HandlingYes

Pricing

This service costs $249 per month. That is a premium price.

Service Details

Details about this service are pretty scant. First you’re told that you get a “dedicated account manager” which has you thinking that it’s going to be a human clicking every action for you… but does anyone on this team look like they’re going to do that?

Here’s what it looks like to me: Connor Heffernan corresponds with you once then him and Bridget McCarthy run Jarvee on your account. How in the world could these two people actually manage “500+ clients”? They can’t!

When you read more into the service, it’s pretty clear that they’re just running a bot.

Hmm… sounds like a bot?

Integrity & Reputation

We have no knocks on this company from an Integrity and Reputation standpoint. It does seem to be a legitimate social media agency offering an array of blended services from a talent/marketing agency standpoint. There are no reviews of the business that we can find.

Conclusion

Overall, while this service might be slightly more bespoke than others, paying $250 per month for someone to run an automated program on your account is outrageous.

Categories
D Rating instagram

Social Boost (social-boost.co) Instagram Growth Service Review

Our Grade – D+

Another bot service being passed off as a growth-by-hand service that fails most of our trust tests.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

Social Boost claims to be both the #1 and the largest Instagram growth agency in the world. They say that they grow accounts using human actions yet, even with a “team” page to assist us, we can’t positively identify any of those humans.

Keep reading as we uncover more information and inconsistencies surrounding this business.

Business Analysis

ItemResult
Growth TypeNo bots, automation or false promises
Quality of ServiceLow
Business Registry / LocationUnknown
Traceable TeamNo
Functioning PhoneNo
Longevity2+ Years
Doesn’t Misuse IG BrandingTrue
Active BlogKind of
External SitesNo
Dashboard / Account ManagementNo
Offsite TestimoniesTrustpilot
Forthcoming About Password HandlingNo

Pricing

Social Boost offers three plans priced at $59/mo, $99/mo, and $249/mo.

Here’s where the problems start. If there’s actually a human sitting there on a cell phone growing your account, that human has to be paid. Even if the human is located in a 3rd-world country, they still have to be paid something. Doesn’t $59 per month seem a little suspicious considering Ampfluence, a service that actually does hire humans in the Philippines, costs $249 per month for their cheapest plan?

There’s no magic here. If you are somehow getting away without paying people, how are you managing them and verifying that they don’t misuse customers’ login details?

Service Details

The claim is straightforward:

… A team of hand-trained Instagram Marketers to manage and grow your account.

They provide a “minimum growth guarantee” but never substantiate what that is. Their “refund policy” more-or-less says that they’re unable to guarantee anything.

Here are some other claims they make. After a while, it all starts to sound the same.

Integrity & Reputation

This service claims to be the #1 provider in the space and the largest agency of its kind. They claim to operate in New York City and London. There are several different services named Social Boost, but we couldn’t positively ID any employees or any office locations.

Who are these people? Seriously. We couldn’t find any of them, even the founder.

All we really need to do here is look at Trustpilot.

Wow, looks great, right? The thing about fake reviews is that they usually follow a pattern. Here are a few semi-detailed but obviously fake testimonials:

Notice that they all follow the same structure. They’re getting creative though, even soliciting fake 4-star reviews. I’m sure this is fooling a lot of people. Let’s check the real negative reviews:

These are all being left in close proximity which makes us believe that this is a high-volume service. We hate to see so many people dissatisfied, but based on the extremely-basic responses and nearly-identical customer complaints, this is obviously not a “Growth by hand” service.

Conclusion

It’s a shame that service providers have to lie to this extent to get customers. This service definitely isn’t growing things by hand and we can’t even find evidence that they are actually based in the US/UK and have real full-time team members. You are better off spending your money elsewhere.

Categories
Agency C Rating instagram

Jumper Media Instagram Growth Service Review

Our Grade – C-

Service with unique sales model lies about what it offers and has a litany of dissatisfied customers.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

Jumper Media is US-based marketing agency primarily providing Instagram growth services. Unlike most services we review, which are usually clear-cut scams or well-known providers, Jumper required a lot of analysis!

If you don’t feel like reading further, our most important conclusion is that they definitely aren’t growing accounts by hand, in one huge contradiction that is exhausting to unravel. There are dozens of customer reviews supporting our conclusion.

Business Analysis

ItemResult
Growth Type“Growth by Hand”
Quality of ServiceLow
Business Registry / LocationSan Diego, CA
Traceable TeamYes
Functioning PhoneNo
Longevity2+ Years
Doesn’t Misuse IG BrandingTrue
Active BlogKind of
External SitesFacebook
Dashboard / Account ManagementUnknown
Offsite TestimoniesTrustpilot
Forthcoming About Password HandlingNo

Pricing

Jumper Media’s pricing is hidden but since they have a large team and premium pitch it’s likely they’re charging well over $100 for their cheapest plan. We think this is kind of silly since they’re almost definitely running a bot and upselling it as if it’s some bespoke service.

You must set up a call with Jumper Media in order to hear prices. It’s likely that they are performing outreach to originate most of their sales or that they’re using this to hide something.

After doing further research, we realized that they probably do this to use direct sales tactics in order to get you sign up for a full year of service upfront. This is a no-no in most industries, but especially in the growth space. So much can change and you’ll feel like you were scammed.

Service Details

Jumper Media provides two clear-cut services to grow your Instagram:

  • We have a team of real people that will sign into your Instagram account on a phone, and start interacting with your target audience by liking their pictures and viewing their Stories.
  • Partner with mega-influencers to dominate Instagram in a (borderline unfair) new way.

Distilled to our language, they offer “Growth by hand” and “influencer/giveaway growth.” Each has its merits. They also link to an Influencer marketing service that we won’t get into.

Integrity & Reputation

Here’s where things more-or-less fall apart for our friends at Jumper Media.

First, we need to assess the claim that they’re growing accounts by hand.

No bots, no software. Smiling team pictured at the beach in California!

Wow, now that is a massive team. Not to invoke stereotypes, but you probably don’t expect anybody in the first row of this picture to be sitting in a back room writing computer code.

One LinkedIn search tells a different story. The company doesn’t seem to employ a single US-based woman, nor can we find evidence that they ever did.

The picture clearly isn’t fake, right? All the people in the picture have Jumper Media shirts on! Our opinion is that they paid for 15 women from a UCSD sorority to come down for the photoshoot. This is what we alluded to in our opening. The level of deception here is just impressive.

What about that “no software” claim? Seems to me like their Russian programmers might have something to say about that:

Believe it or not, you don’t bring in the Russians to do website design. They’re obviously helping with the underlying platform that grows customers’ accounts. I wonder how the customers feel.

In an extremely-rare display of force on Yelp, people are not happy with Jumper Media.

We’re shocked by what we’ve uncovered here. All of these people can’t be exaggerating. When a company “looks legit” we’re usually hesitant to give bad reviews, but this helps us believe that we should trust our gut instinct.

On Trustpilot, it’s a similar story, though they’ve padded their page with dozens of fake one-sentence reviews.

The one thing that impresses us is that many of the men in the picture above do indeed appear to be employed by Jumper Media. It’s crazy that they run such a thick sales team without adding any other services. Focusing on Instagram growth knowing you’re vulnerable to any and every change Instagram makes must make for a stressful “10,000 sqft office” environment.

Conclusion

This service claims to be a premium player but really it’s the same old type of botting sold directly to unsuspecting targets. They seem to have a large sales team who will sell to customers who won’t do the requisite research which is good for business but bad for customer satisfaction. There is no question why there are so many dissatisfied customers out there. Jumper Media oversells and under-delivers a basic product.

Categories
instagram X Rating

Grow Social Media (grow-social.meda) Instagram Growth Service Review

Our Grade – X

This website is no longer functioning.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

Grow Social Media, with one of the most generic yet optimized-for-google-search names we’ve ever seen, was a short-lived Instagram growth service operating back in 2019. It has been shut down for some time and there is very little information out on the internet about this company.

Business Analysis

ItemResult
Growth TypeSaaS
Quality of ServiceMedium
Business Registry / LocationLondon, UK
Traceable TeamNo
Functioning PhoneNo
Longevity< 10 months
Doesn’t Misuse IG BrandingTrue
Active BlogNo
External SitesNo
Dashboard / Account ManagementNo
Offsite TestimoniesTrustpilot
Forthcoming About Password HandlingNo

Integrity & Reputation

This website had a few positive reviews on Trustpilot.

Conclusion

This website is no longer functioning. The extremely generic company name that is comprised entirely of popular search terms is nearly impossible to find any mentions of.

Categories
instagram X Rating

Riotly Social Media Instagram Growth Service

Our Grade – X

This website is barely functional.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

Riotly Social Media, much to our surprise, seems like an Instagram growth service with a legitimate supporting cast. Unfortunately, it appears impossible to sign up on the website, so I don’t think they’re still in business.

Business Analysis

ItemResult
Growth TypeSaaS
Quality of ServiceUnknown
Business Registry / LocationHong Kong
Traceable TeamYes?, Yes
Functioning PhoneNo
Longevity1 year
Doesn’t Misuse IG BrandingTrue
Active BlogNot since 2019
External SitesNo
Dashboard / Account ManagementYes
Offsite TestimoniesTrustpilot
Forthcoming About Password HandlingNo

Pricing

Riotly had very expensive pricing plans for their automation service. For $250/mo, you could pay for Ampfluence which grows your account using human hands or a cheap social media manager.

Service Details

Though the prices are high, this is a typical follow/unfollow bot service. It’s unclear to me what all these people on the team are actually doing, since they don’t even try to convince you that the actions are performed by humans.

They seem to offer a “Like Bump” service which they say is provided by their exclusive network numbering 1000 accounts. I think this is just a bunch of bots.

Integrity & Reputation

The Trustpilot reviews are nothing to write home about.

Aside from that, this service passes a fair amount of our tests of trustworthiness. They clearly identify the team and the business location while not making any ridiculous claims about results.

Unfortunately, they do seem to lie about their media features and ratings on their “Like Bump” page.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, we fear that something may have happened to this business during the political unrest in Hong Kong. It is also possible that they stopped operating after one of the Instagram updates in 2018 or 2019.

Categories
instagram X Rating

We Grow Social Instagram Growth Service Review

Our Grade – X

Though the website is still live, it seems impossible to proceed to the payment page

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

We Grow Social is an Instagram growth service that claims to grow your following in a 100% compliant way using… Instagram ads?

This makes little sense since any ad campaign will have a relatively-high fixed cost just to run the ads. If you’re an agency that specializes in managing ad campaigns, why not just say that? Unless…

“We Grow Social works around the clock to grow your Instagram followers using FB & IG Ads, advanced targeting, and the management of the interactions with your target audience”

Reading between the lines, part of me doubts that they run ads at all.

Business Analysis

ItemResult
Growth Type“Organic Ads”
Quality of ServiceLow
Business Registry / LocationCalifornia / We Grow Social LLC
Traceable TeamNo
Functioning PhoneNo
Longevity2 Years
Doesn’t Misuse IG BrandingTrue
Active BlogLinks to defunct https://www.socialiteblog.com/
External SitesNo
Dashboard / Account ManagementNo
Offsite TestimoniesNo
Forthcoming About Password HandlingNo

Pricing

This is worth talking about since we never see it. They’ll create some ads for you but they leave completely vague who is responsible for paying for the ads. This seems like an ad manager service, but what’s this “customized campaign running around the clock?” Strikes me as some type of automated activity.

Service Details

This business claims to manage ad campaigns for you but this is likely a front for a basic bot service offered at an inflated price. If you’re just running $50-100 in ad campaigns, an individual can easily do this himself. There’s no reason to bring in a faceless PR company just to help with a little design work.

The language on the website strongly suggests they’re just going to run a bot on your account. Also, giving someone access to your account with ad manager access used to give them free reign in being able to spend credits linked to your card on file. The website doesn’t mention this or any other logical points that would get raised if they actually ran a legitimate business.

Integrity & Reputation

This service doesn’t still seem to be accepting customers, so most of this is moot.

The business is supposedly registered to We Grow Social LLC. We were unable to locate a record of this company. The listed location appears to be an apartment building in Vista, California. It’s impossible to locate any team members or any other company records on LinkedIn.

There is also no record on review platforms, which suggests this business is very old and was mostly shut down prior to 2019.

Conclusion

This service is no longer operating but likely was operating on a false premise.

Categories
instagram X Rating

WizzSocial Instagram Growth Service Review

Our Grade – X

This service is no longer operating as the website displayed a WordPress error page.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

WizzSocial was an Instagram Growth service the operated between 2019 and 2020. This was likely a single-owner service that was only promoted by posts by the owner on Reddit.

Business Analysis

ItemResult
Growth TypeManaged SaaS
Quality of ServiceUnknown
Business Registry / LocationUnknown
Traceable TeamNo
Functioning PhoneNo
Longevity< 1 year
Doesn’t Misuse IG BrandingTrue
Active BlogNo
External SitesNo
Dashboard / Account ManagementNo
Offsite TestimoniesNo
Forthcoming About Password HandlingNo

Pricing & Service Details

All pricing info and, ideally, a screenshot.

This service offered a plan for $125 per month and another for $200 per month. They claimed that “ALL WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. MUST QUALIFY” which makes sense but might just be a marketing ploy. Also, the engagement guarantees accompanying the plans are pretty outrageous. Though, we will give credit where it’s due, it is rare even to see this type of thing described in such detail.

Let’s not forget that these prices are incredibly high. It’s obvious that they’re just going to run a bot on your account, so $200 per month is kind of insulting.

Integrity & Reputation

Well, the website is not longer working. It’s likely that the business is shut down and that the owner has moved on.

We were unable to find any independent reviews for this site.

Conclusion

Wizz was an Instagram growth provider that never really got off the ground. There isn’t exactly a shortage of Instagram growth service providers, so the owners of Wizz are probably better off spending their time elsewhere.

Categories
D Rating instagram

Skweezer Instagram SMM Panel Review

Our Grade – D

This is another SMM service that does not meet our standards for trust and is in violation of Instagram’s usage policy.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

Skweezer claims to offer “Instagram growth services” but it just sells fake activity. This is known as an SMM Panel or SMM reseller. These services blatantly violate Instagram’s terms and Instagram/Facebook actively police these sites. Any active website still offering these services has a high likelihood of being based outside the US where they have less legal liability.

We’ve noticed some websites have mentioned Skweezer in the past tense as if it has shut down. The website appears to still be operating.

Business Analysis

ItemResult
Growth TypeSMM Panel / Fake activity
Quality of ServiceLow
Business Registry / Location Turbogrm Ltd, established at 20-22 Wenlock Road, London, England, N1 7GU 25, Registration number (11572750)
Traceable TeamNo
Functioning PhoneNo
Longevity2+ years (perhaps intermittently)
Doesn’t Misuse IG BrandingTrue
Active BlogNo
External SitesNo
Dashboard / Account ManagementN/A
Offsite TestimoniesAbuse of Trustpilot was so rampant that they appear to have been banned from the platform
Forthcoming About Password HandlingN/A

Pricing

Skweezer lists fake Instagram engagement for predictably cheap prices. If this is your first time encountering a service like this, keep reading to learn why this is not a good deal

Service Details

Skweezer offers a bevy of fake engagement services. They also offer a service that asks you to pay a fixed fee to become verified and gain a blue checkmark on Instagram.

Behind the scenes, all of these services are supported by botnets either controlled by or contracted by the owners of Skweezer. Since the website design is so similar to other sites we’ve seen in the space, we suspect there is an army of bots that is made available to these services. Especially any time you have to wait for delivery, there’s a chance that the service doesn’t own the bots.

Though Skweezer makes a few statements indicating the followers are “real,” including this outrageous statement:

We only send you real followers. These are accounts created by real people in our network, that get paid a share for following you. This way, buying followers is harm-free and fully risk free.

Uh-huh… they have a network of… tens of thousands of people? Ready to get paid pennies to take orders to follow people in “seconds” or “instantly?” What a lie.

Integrity & Reputation

Like all other services in this realm, Skweezer is built to take advantage of people who don’t know any better. The followers or fake activity will dissipate rather quickly since they’re abusing the same bot accounts to fulfill all orders.

The team isn’t traceable and there is little transparency on the site. They do acknowledge that some followers may unfollow “because they’re real” but mention that Skweezer will “refill” them for free. Well, if they can refill them willy-nilly, there’s a pretty good chance that they’re fake. I’m being facetious, obviously the followers are fake.

We found a crazy situation over on Trustpilot where it appears Skweezer had so many fake reviews that the company was booted from the platform!

Conclusion

Don’t waste your money on a service like this. It’s pretty obvious to Instagram when you’ve bought fake activity and your account can be penalized for it. The activity might stick only for a very brief amount of time and by the time your friends or would-be customers would even notice, the deadbeat followers are likely to have disappeared.

Categories
Agency D Rating instagram

Social Hackettes Instagram Growth Service Review

Our Grade – D+

This service has way too much going on and seems to simply be a storefront that re-sells other white-labeled services.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

Social Hackettes is a social media growth agency that offers a variety of services across a number of popular platforms. We’re going to focus on their Instagram growth service.

While we’re impressed by the breadth of this agency, it’s highly unlikely that the owner is personally offering most of the services. They’re likely offered through white-label partners. This means that prices will never be as cheap as they can be and customer service may be slow because there may be communication between this service provider and contracted partners.

Business Analysis

ItemResult
Growth TypeUnknown, possibly white-labeled
Quality of ServiceUnknown
Business Registry / LocationOrange, New Jersey
Traceable TeamYes, owner Kimberly Carpenter
Functioning PhoneYes
Longevity2+ Years
Doesn’t Misuse IG BrandingTrue
Active BlogYes
External SitesFacebook
Dashboard / Account ManagementNo
Offsite TestimoniesNo
Forthcoming About Password HandlingYes

Pricing

This service costs $50 per month with a 5-day free trial.

Service Details

All we have to say is: we are overwhelmed!

This is a buffet of services! How could you even keep track of all of them? It’s worth noting that this provider sells an Instagram growth service and also sells fake Instagram activity boosts. These two things combined don’t build confidence.

In fact, they sell an “extra like boost” with the growth plan, which is a little sketchy since, you know, it’s fake activity.

Integrity & Reputation

This service has been around for a long time, since 2017, but there’s virtually no mentions of it online. That tells us that it isn’t a very popular service and that the owner’s priorities lie with other parts of the agency. If a business has been around for four years and you can’t find a single real customer experience anywhere on the internet, that is cause for concern.

Conclusion

The agency has way too much going on and undermines trust by offering fake like services alongside an “organic” growth service. We don’t think it’s a complete scam, but it needs a lot of work to be something we’d trust with our money.

Categories
D Rating instagram

XPLOD Social (Social Bloom) Instagram Growth Service Review

Our Grade – D

We don’t trust this provider.

View our grading methodology.

At a Glance

XPLOD Social is an Instagram growth service that was started after Bloom Social shut down. Though the website is pretty and some of their product offerings are unique, this service fails most of our transparency checks and we actually doubt whether it’s still serving customers.

Business Analysis

ItemResult
Growth TypeSaaS
Quality of ServiceLow
Business Registry / LocationUSA claimed
Traceable TeamNo
Functioning PhoneNo
Longevity2+ Years
Doesn’t Misuse IG BrandingTrue
Active BlogNo
External SitesNo
Dashboard / Account ManagementN/A
Offsite TestimoniesBetter Business Bureau
Forthcoming About Password HandlingYes

Pricing

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Weekly recurring pricing is the mark of a service that intends to scam you. There is no logical reason to structure charges like this unless your business depends on people forgetting they’re signed up or being careless with what they subscribe to.

Service Details

This is a unique service in that for there very expensive plans they offer content and business strategy consulting. This isn’t common but it’s appropriate for the price point. Paying that much money can almost pay for the services of a real social media agency.

One part of the service description that we don’t understand is the 10x-20x-50x “Instagram Growth Engine.” We think that’s the term they’re using to refer to their platform. But, if that’s the case, we don’t understand what the multiplier means.

Overall, this is likely a basic bot service.

Integrity & Reputation

This is one of the rare services that puts so little effort into reputation management that they have left Better Business Bureau complaints not responded to. Both of these seem pretty clear cut, XPLOD is in the wrong and doesn’t want to return the money.

Next, we have the issue of Bloom Social rebranding to XPLOD Social. This isn’t a good sign. Usually it means that the business was asked to shut down or was on the verge of shutting down. It could mean that a payment processor banned them from their platform. If the company had positive goodwill with customers, they wouldn’t have rushed to rebrand.

Services such as this can salvage reputation by passing are other trusts tests. They rarely do. The only associate we were able to find was … an Italian guy based in Italy who claimed to be the founder?

It would be easy to write this guy off as some sort of imposter… but… you can’t. Because the company doesn’t maintain any web presence at all. Who knows, maybe this guy has nothing to do with it and xplod.social is a different website? Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.

The company name plastered all over the site is Lead Mavins, LLC. Unfortunately, separately, these are 3 very common words that will turn up countless hits for other topics. Their BBB profile lists a California address but we were unable to find a California LLC registry matching this name. We couldn’t find any evidence of this LLC anywhere else on the internet.

Shockingly, this service doesn’t have any Trustpilot reviews. There is a possibility that, though the site remains up, registration fails at some point. In other words, it’s not being maintained.

Conclusion

There’s too much here that gives us pause. We don’t recommend trying out this service as there is no transparency and their pricing model is setting you up to be abused.