I’ve always been annoyed by the “influencer” marketing practices. It’s coming up on 10 years of annoying, spammy stuff that has never seemed real or valuable. So, it’s surprising (to me anyway) that this writer seems surprised just how easy it is to be sketchy:

This represented the latest form of ad fraud afflicting advertisers and brands today seeking to work with social media influencers. To bring the issue to light, we created two fake Instagram influencer accounts. The goal of our experiment was to show how easy it is to create a fake influencer account, and to prove that it’s possible for fake accounts to secure paid brand deals through influencer marketing platforms.

Source: This Influencer Marketing Shop Created Fake Accounts to Prove That the Industry Is Full of Ad Fraud – Adweek