One of the worst kept secrest in the influencer world is that it’s a pay to play game. For a few thousand dollars you too can be on the cover of Playboy magazine. Okay sure it’s Playboy Africa or something like that, but still, you technically are on the cover of a real Playboy magazine. I think Maxim and FHM have pay-to-play deals with photographers as well. These are, however, real magazines with REAL followers and really established brands.
Some people have used this information to scam models, influencers, and adult performers into paying to be on the cover of a fake magazine. This particular group of con men is out of India, and in May of this year, they created a website called Billboard Lifestyle, which is meant to mimic the website owned by Billboard magazine, which does, in fact, have a lifestyle section.
The real Billboard magazine website is very well known. It’s like Playboy but for Musicians. Being featured in Billboard magazine is a really big deal for those in the music industry.
Their website (Billboard.com) gets over 20 million visitors a month. The company that owns them is called Pekse Media Corp, and they own a ton of other really big brands like Variety, Deadline, Rolling Stone, and so many more. Let’s just say these guys are a big company.
In May of this year, a group of conmen out of India set up their own website called Billboard Lifestyle to mimic the original website. They made a ton of posts and then went out to con girls to pay them to get a cover of Billboard Lifestyle magazine.
I’m told they are charging anywhere from $5,000 to $9,000, and so far, they have tricked quite a few girls into doing this. These rates are on par with what it takes to get a cover for other magazines like International Playboy’s so I get why some might not question it.
But they should have. Because, in the end, they are paying for nothing. They are not getting exposure for being in a real magazine with any real subscribers or readers, nor are they featured on a website with any traffic.
Here are some of the fake Billboard Lifestyle covers.
Let’s look at one of the girls who fell for it. She’s an up-and-coming iG influencer named Ariana Amadeus, who, as you can see by her post, actually tags Billboard (the real company), not the con men. Then, it provides the link to a fake website. It couldn’t be more obvious that this girl thought she was being featured in a story by the real Billboard.
The Billboard Lifestyle Instagram page is set to look real, but it’s actually far from legit.
The low engagement rate and zero comments per post should be a red flag, but there’s more.
Here you can see the account is actually based in India and has changed username multiple times over the last few years.
Their website is nothing more than an attempt to sell the scam. Doing a deep dive, we see that their website has only 2300 (estimated) visitors per month, which includes the guys running the site and making fake posts. They get less than 100 visitors a day.
And as you can see, most of that is from India. So it’s all fake “bot” traffic.
The Billboard Lifestyle website created its first post on May 4, 2024. By June, it had already recruited several influencers and aspiring models.
This is a copy of their first post.
This was created just a few months ago. Now, they have posted thousands of seemingly real posts, but they are all just a way to mask the fact that their website is a scam.
There is no such thing as Billboard Lifestyle magazine.
This company is not in any way, shape, or form associated with the real Billboard magazine.
Please be careful out there, ladies, and don’t fall for these scams. And please share this post with your friends so they won’t be tricked into doing business with guys like this.
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