Three lucky fans thought they won Louis Vuitton bags from YouTube star Allisa Violet, but it may have actually been a scam all along.
Alissa Violet, an influencer and FaZe Clan owner Ricky Bank’s ex-girlfriend, recently promoted a giveaway for Louis Vuitton handbags. She shared a post to her 8.8 million Instagram followers on August 25 that oulined how her fans could win one of the availale designer bags.
Her followers simply had to follow a sunglasses company called Cheek and then tag two friends in the post’s comment section. The winners would then be announced on August 30, the following Friday. But that didn’t happen.
As August 30 loomed ahead of her, Violet changed the giveaway photo’s caption from “wait omg we’re giving away free Louis Vuitton bags to a few of my followers <3” to “long day (announcing the winners friday).” This then changed to “long day,” which is still the caption today.
If that wasn’t enough to make some of her followers question the legitimacy of the giveaway, fans started to notice that Cheek’s Instagram handle was actually a broken link. The company acknowledged it as “very strange” and then created a backup account. They posted an entirely new way for people to enter the giveaway, which was to follow everyone that their new account was following.
As tension mounted, three winners were finally announced a week after the promised date. The names appeared on Cheek’s new account’s Instagram story. It seemed to be legitimate.
Well, maybe.
After the announement, Violet and Cheek both went silent. According to BuzzFeed News, all three winners informed the publication that they have not received their prizes. They also weren’t able to get a hold of either the sunglasses company or Violet.
One winner, Venessa Avila, shared some DMs with Buzzfeed that included the 19-year-old telling Cheek that she hadn’t received her prize, and then asking Violet if she could confirm that she actually did win, since the YouTube star hadn’t mentioned anything on her own Instagram account regarding the contest.
Avila tried to reach out to Cheek one more time on September 2. The next day, Cheek told her the prize would be shipped on September 4.
As of October 8, Avila has still not received her handbag. The other two winners were disqualified for being underage or for living outside of the US. And it appears that Cheek has already gone under.
Still, the failed company told BuzzFeed that they “shipped the bag two weeks ago.” They also denied the contest having ever been a scam.
For now, it remains to be seen if the winning girl will receive her prize. Many in the YouTube and Twitch community are questioning why a successful YouTuber like Violet doesn’t just send the three winners three bags herself to smooth over the situation.
This wasn’t the only scandal Violet ran into this month. The Instagram model also leaked her own nudes to a YouTube tabloid account after she was allegedly threatened by hackers.
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