When you’re in the market for a new bong, you may think that foregoing the more official and secure route is better if it saves you money. You never think that you can get scammed until it happens to you. People buy bongs off of social media pages like Facebook and Instagram every day. Compared to ecommerce stores, these sources are more likely to result in negative outcomes. By negative outcomes, I mean scams, fake pieces, and even running into issues after you make your purchase. Rather than thinking that you’re invincible and risking falling into significant issues, buy through a verified seller like All In 1 Smoke Shop. This will allow you to receive a certified piece of glass and skip any potential funny business. Let’s learn about some of the ways that buying a bong through social media can be harmful and how to avoid rookie mistakes like this.
Is Instagram Better than Ecommerce Stores?
The short answer is no – buying through social pages such as Instagram is much worse than buying through Ecommerce stores. This is because there is nothing that officially ties the seller to the buyer. This means the seller can take advantage of the buyer and manipulate them into unreasonable prices or worse. Purchasing glass pieces through social media is never a good idea. To ensure your safety, it’s best to stick to reputable sources.
Buying through Ecommerce stores allows you to keep a paper and official record of every step of your purchase. This means if something happens with your money, if you’re overcharged, if you never receive your item, and if there is damage to your received goods, you can handle it appropriately. Instagram doesn’t offer such service. The product goes directly from buyer to seller without direct proof of purchase.
Never purchase bongs or other glass pieces through any social media pages, especially Instagram. Because it is not official, you can run into all types of problems. That being said, there are few and far between benefits of purchasing through Instagram. Let’s look.
What are the Benefits to Buying off of Instagram?
While I never recommend buying bongs off Instagram, there is one major benefit of doing so. That is the price. If you’re on a tight budget, you may be tempted to jump on any deals you find on Instagram because you’ll feel as if you’re getting a great deal. Unfortunately, the money isn’t always worth the potential hassle.
Not every listed seller on Instagram is a scam, but it’s safer to think of each as such. If you don’t, it’s easy to run into a potential conflict. This means you must be very cautious and treat every Instagram seller post as a scam. Unless you want to lose money or buy a fake bong, the cheap price listed on Instagram isn’t worth the potential trouble.
Should Instagram be the First Place You Look When Buying a New Bong?
Again, the short answer is no. Instagram, as well as other social media pages, should absolutely not be the first place you look when buying a new bong. It may seem like your best option at first because of the cheaper and discounted price tags. After some investigation, though, you can see that it’s truly not worth the potential issue. Sellers on Instagram may not even have a product they can sell you. They get their money off of scamming their customers and ripping them off. That being said, on the opposite end of the spectrum you may be significantly overcharged for cheap pieces of glass. Tons of scammers buy through websites like DHgate and resell their merchandise at a significantly higher price tag. These are not only more dangerous, but it puts you out of a large sum of money for an item that won’t fully work well. A lot comes to play when thinking of purchasing a bong through Instagram. Your first concern, though, should be potential scammers. It’s important to keep your eyes open and avoid them altogether. The following section talks about everything to be aware of about Instagram bong seller scams.
Bong Scamming on Instagram
When in doubt, it’s best to treat every Instagram seller as if they’re a scammer. After all, buying anything on Instagram is sketchy. You may not know the person in real life, and you don’t know if they truly have an item to sell to you. Over the years of its development, Instagram has become a hot market place. People from all around the world are connected with another. This, combined with their ability to learn how to sell products online, makes for a global market place unlike any other. Millennials are one group of people that take significant advantage of this. With the help of the internet and social media pages like Instagram, this group has become the most entrepreneurial generation. Unfortunately, this doesn’t equal morality.
People who sell on Instagram do so because it’s easy. What buyers don’t recognize, though, is it’s just as easy to get scammed than it is to list a product up for sale. There are a few different types of Instagram scammers. They are those with fake accounts, fake products, and unreliable products. Each are categorized with their own sets of information. Let’s take a look at each.
Fake Accounts
When I say fake accounts, I don’t mean that the accounts themselves are unreal. In fact, the accounts themselves are truly reputable. The issue, though, is that they may have been sold and bought. Tons of people try to purchase reputable and built Instagram accounts with tons of followers in hopes that they would scam their followers in the future. These people use the trust that this Instagram account built and exploits their followers. This is the most common scam you’ll find on Instagram, especially for bong sellers.
Why Would a Bong Scammer Buy an Account?
There are many reasons why a bong scammer would buy someone else’s credible account. First of all, bong scammers often get caught. This is because if they scam someone, they can easily be reported. Once this is done, they need to change their identity. A change in identity is not the only thing that will make buyers attracted to their accounts, though. Buyers want to see credibility and a high reputation. This means that if there are little followers, they’re less likely to “purchase”. Buying accounts make it look like they are a credible seller when in all actuality they just scam their customers.
After purchasing the account, they reupload the products that they are currently “selling”. This makes the account seem normal, as they are visually credible. Buying accounts also allow bong scammers to have multiple open accounts at a time which ultimately increases their productivity.
Bong scammers know that word of their cons can easily get out. Because of this, they have perfected the art of purchasing new accounts, recreating their profiles, and rebuilding credibility fast.
Fake Products
One common thing that scammers might do is “sell” items that they do not truly have. This means that they’ll post a picture to their Instagram and ask you to send the payment before you receive the item. They’ll then never send out the item and keep your money. This is the ultimate scam. Never trust Instagram pages that don’t send you confirmations, those that ask you to pay through unconfirmed payment methods, and those that can’t provide you with actual images of the prospective product.
Unreliable Products
Some scammers may truly be selling products. The question though is if they’re truly good quality or not. Good quality bongs will often be priced higher, sturdier, and contain no lead paints in them. Another scam is they could be sending you a completely different item than what you think you’re actually paying for. If the seller can’t confirm these details and if the piece of glass is legitimate, they could be trying to scam you. Along with this, if you’re looking to buy a used bong, there is no way of telling whether the product is broken or not. There is no guarantee that your item is in good condition. Going along with this, if you’re looking buy a new product and receive it broken in the mail, there is little you can do to enforce you get your money back. Since there was no paper trail left, all evidence of proof doesn’t hold water.
All In 1 Smoke Shop has shipping insurance and boasts about not having a bong break during shipment in over two years! With us, you’ll never have a concern about unreliable products.
How to Spot a Scammer
One of the strategies that scammers use to lure in their customers is through storytelling. Once you see a story being told, you can know that a scam is about to take place. While not definite proof, it is a great clue and provides you with insight. Some examples of common stories include how their rent may be due, or that some emergency came up and they “hate to let this go.”
A second key to finding a scammer is running a reference check, otherwise called “ref check.” These are verified pages on both Facebook and Instagram. Be skeptical of these ref checks, though. Just because someone was capable of passing a ref check on Facebook doesn’t mean much, especially if this person has never had face-to-face interactions with others.
Shop at All In 1 Smoke Shop
Overall, it’s better to buy bongs off of allin1smokeshop.com because you’ll have guaranteed results and access to trusted brands. You’ll never be scammed by us, and you’ll always receive the highest quality piece possible.
Compared than buying off of Instagram, All In 1 Smoke Shop is trusted and has proven results.
All In 1 Smoke Shop has tons of returning customers due to their superior packaging and trusted products. With our satisfaction guarantee, great customer service, and personal interactions with our customers, you won’t regret your purchase from us.
