The message looks like every brand deal you have ever wanted. A brand you recognize, a friendly partnerships manager, a rate that is a little better than you expected. That last part is the tell, more often than not. Scams targeting creators work because they are dressed as the exact thing you are hoping for, and because they arrive when you are excited enough to skip the checks.
This guide is a checklist. Run it against any offer that arrives cold, and you will catch nearly all of them in two minutes.
The two-minute check
Before you reply to any offer, do these four things in order:
- Read the sender's address, not the sender's name. The name says "Partnerships at [Brand]". The address is what matters. Compare the domain after the @ to the brand's real website, character by character.
- Look for a rate and a brief. A real offer says what they want and what they pay, or asks for your rate directly. "We'd love to collab, DM us for details" is not an offer.
- Search the brand name plus "scam" and plus "creator". If a fake version of this brand is doing the rounds, another creator has already posted about it.
- Ask for it in writing on a page you control. Put the deal on a record with the deliverables, the rate, and the payment method before you make anything. A scammer's offer falls apart the moment it has to survive being written down.
If the offer passes all four, it is probably real. If it fails any one, keep reading.
Want the check done for you? Paste the message into the free Brand Deal Scam Checker. It runs the red flags below in your browser, nothing uploaded, no signup, and links each one back to this guide.
The 12 red flags
They are ranked by how often they show up, so the top of the list is where to look first.
1. You are asked to pay for anything
Product, shipping, a "verification fee", a "processing deposit", a subscription to a portal. A brand that wants your content pays you; the money only ever moves toward you. This single rule catches more scams than the other eleven combined.
2. "Buy it now, we'll reimburse you"
The most common shape in 2026. A fake shop, often a convincing clone of a real brand's site, asks you to purchase the product with a discount code and promises reimbursement plus a fee after you post. The reimbursement never comes, and the shop is gone in a month. Real gifted programs ship you the product.
3. The email domain is wrong
partnerships@brandname-collabs.com, brandname.marketing@gmail.com, brand-name-official.co. Real brands write from their own domain. A single extra word, a swapped letter, or a free email provider is disqualifying, no matter how good the rest of the message looks.
4. The rate is too generous for the ask
$1,500 for one post to an account with 2,000 followers is not a great deal, it is bait. Scammers overpay on paper because the money is not real. Real brands, especially good ones, pay market rates and ask about usage.
5. Overpayment by check or transfer
You receive a check or a transfer for more than the agreed amount and are asked to send the difference back, or on to a "videographer". The original payment reverses days later and your refund is gone. Never send money back to a brand for any reason; ask them to re-issue the correct amount.
6. They want your login, a code, or a screen-share
For "ad access", "verification", or "to set up the collab". Legitimate whitelisting runs through the platform's own partnership tools and never needs your password. Anyone asking for a one-time code is stealing the account.
7. Payment only in gift cards, crypto, or an app you have never heard of
Real brands pay through invoices to a bank account, Stripe, PayPal, or an established platform. A brand that can only pay in gift cards is not a brand.
8. Urgency and secrecy
"We need an answer in the next hour", "keep this confidential", "don't tell other creators the rate". Pressure is there to stop you doing the check above. A real partnerships team is used to creators taking a day.
9. No brief, no deliverables, no usage terms
They love your content and want to "work together", but cannot say what they want you to make, when, or how they will use it. Vagueness is easy to fake; a real brief is not.
10. A contract that arrives as a link or a download you did not ask for
A PDF is normal. A link to "sign in to view the contract", or an attachment that needs you to enable something to open it, is a phishing or malware attempt. Ask them to paste the terms into the email, or use your own contract.
11. They found you through a mass DM with your handle pasted in
"Hi @yourhandle, we've been following your page" sent to ten thousand accounts. Real outreach references something specific you made. Copy-paste outreach with a link is almost always a fake store or a follower-buying scheme.
12. The brand exists, but this person does not
The domain is real, the brand is real, and the name on the email is not anyone who works there. Check the person on the brand's site or on a professional network. Impersonating a real employee at a real brand is the highest-effort version of this scam, and it is why the domain check alone is not enough.
The one-line version. Money moves toward you, the domain matches, the brief exists, and nobody needs your password. Anything else is a no.
What a real offer looks like
It helps to know the shape you are checking against. A legitimate cold offer usually has: a person with a real title at a real domain, a reference to a specific piece of your content, a rough description of what they want (format, quantity, timeline), and either a budget or a question about your rate. It is fine if it is short. It is fine if the rate is lower than you would like. What it is never is urgent, vague, and generous all at once.
Put every offer on a record before you make anything
The best protection is procedural, not clever. Before you shoot a single frame, the deal should exist somewhere as a record with the brand, the deliverables, the rate, the usage rights, and how you will be paid, and the brand should have agreed to it. On Plug Pro that is a deal page: you log the deal, the brand opens a share link and accepts the terms, and the invoice and license live on the same record. A scammer will not accept terms on a page they cannot control, and the ones that try leave a trail. See how to invoice a brand for the payment side.
If you already replied
You have not lost anything by replying. You lose when money or access moves. If you sent money, dispute the charge with your bank or card provider today and keep every message. If you shared a password or a code, change it now, turn on two-factor authentication, and check the account's connected apps and email. If you shipped product you bought, treat it as gone and dispute the purchase. Then report the account on the platform it contacted you from, so the next creator sees the warning.
The habit that ends this
Every real deal you land will survive a two-minute check and a written record. The scams cannot. Make the check automatic, keep the record, and the excitement of a good offer stops being a vulnerability.