Insta-garbage!
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I moved this to it’s own thread as I didn’t think Instagram could get any shittier. I’m so naive to what happens on social media, it blows my mind raffles are a standard. Sports have pack bids, which are more of a middle ground, as you are guaranteed to receive a pack.
These raffles are one or a few people winning and everyone else receives nothing. Not trying to be overly serious guy, but raffles are illegal in most states, as it’s gambling. The fact this is now a standard speaks volumes about the Instagram “community”. Not to mention, how many of the participants are kids? I wouldn’t be surprised in 2-4 years if Instagram is complete shade city and avoided almost entirely by serious collectors. It already provides nothing substantial to the hobby.
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I’ve almost completely ditched instagram for this reason. As someone deftly put it (perhaps @pkmnflyingmaster?) instagram is at best a competition for who has the biggest poke-cock.
At worst it’s stuff like this, patently illegal scams that are meant to capitalize on kids and others who are unaware of what they’re playing into. It’s also a cesspool of overhyping and circle-jerking that can lead to market imbalances (see: Charizard Gold Star PSA 10). It used to be a good community, a great way to show off your collection and see others but now it’s just become another unregulated scammers paradise.
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Been wanting to vent about this for a while, Instagram is an absolute cesspool. Joined initially to meet fellow UK collectors because the community was so active but its become near impossible to ignore the toxicity.
Scamming is a huge issue; especially because certain scammers are defended by other well known users, complaints and dissonant opinions are stamped out and small conscientious users are threatened and urged to leave.
…and now with raffles things have gotten significantly worse, various users are running rigged raffles and enabling children to gamble, it’s an absolute mess, shade city is an understatement.
I’m concerned about the wider reaching effects of this on the hobby and also about the lack of repercussions from Instagram staff, I’ve reported numerous shady things and nothing ever comes of it.
I am collecting evidence though, mainly of raffles because you know… gambling, so we’ll see if anything comes of that.
Grateful for this community at times like these.
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When this garbage started I cancelled my IG. It is our responsibility to do whatever we can to discourage these practices, even under conditions where legality doesn’t come into play.
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And concerned you should be. How many of us were encouraged by our parents years ago to participate in the hobby? Well, most of us. Now, how many parents will assist their kids if their getting scammed or mingle with these losers?
Does reporting them do anything?
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Try this. Take a coin and flip it four times. The odds of the coin landing on heads all four times consecutively are equal to the odds of you winning the box if you spend $180 on spots. That’s a 6.25% chance. Keep your money kids. Another way of looking at it is if you spend $180 you have a 93.75% chance of losing you’re money.
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While I agree that is a positive, your example is more of an exception.
After @ozenigma posted this pic, I took about 10 minutes browsing through common hashtags, I stopped trying to count all of the raffles.
If people can find some utility out of something, more power to them. I think the concern is there is no type of regulation that can pump the breaks on the garbage, and it has become acceptable for the platform.
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Un-follow and move on, IG has more positives than negatives. It connects people from across continents in a much quicker fashion than many other ways. Plus you can pick and choose as too what you are personally familiar with and appreciate.
Some people have such negative opinions of IG, stop looking for the problem when it doesnt have to be there in front of you in the first place.
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That’s not true.
Even if you unfollow people, you’re bombarded with ads. 1 every three posts now I believe.
Also, there’s no way to filter out that crap if you’re on the “Explore” page, or searching through hashtags. The only way to find the people you want to follow is through waddling through a bunch of garbage.
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While I definitely support unfollowing these people and creating your own group chats composed of people you trust and get on with, the fact remains that these miscreants are still a part of the community at large, and while you’re turning a blind eye to it, other more vulnerable/younger users don’t and they could still be a victim of all these scams, this in turn may push people away from the hobby (which affects us), create a negative image that hurts the hobby (which again, affects us) and generates complacency in users who have a platform that could change things for the better.
That being said, as some of you have mentioned there are a lot of people in the community who are pillars of support and who start positive trends for people to enjoy, its just a shame that historically sometimes all it takes is a few bad eggs to spoil the batch.
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Instagram has been almost all positive in my experience. Yes the raffles (essentially scams) are obnoxious but I unfollow people who post those. Then I no longer have to worry about it. There is garbage everywhere. No matter what social media you prefer. Honestly, Facebook and YouTube are far more cancerous than Instagram. The way I see it is that Instagram is basically a big collective of collection updates.
Edit: Funny enough I just unfollowed the person in the op a day ago because of their constant raffles
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I think people are talking about separate points, their experience vs an actual problem.
The issue is simple: raffles, fake cards, customs, only FF payment, etc. didn’t exist a few years ago. Today they do; primarily on Instagram. In two years the growth and acceptance of this nonsense is astronomical. There is no other platform that contains more of this garbage. Therefore saying “IG is positive for me” isn’t address the objective issues. Again, more power to the people who can use it as a utility!
Also, I wanted to throw this in to have @prochaos argue against prochaos. 
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The raffles are already terrible, but adding a buyback is even more mind boggling. You might as well go to the casino.
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I will certainly concede that this type of behavior has grown and that Instagram has more than it’s fair share of issues. However, there is not much the average user can do other than unfollow or not give it attention. Also these issues are not exclusive to Instagram.
I guess my point is that it is what you make of it. I’m disgusted by the rampant gambling but there is little I can do other than ignore it or leave the platform. Personally I’ll just ignore it and make the best of what the platform has to offer. It’s up to Instagram to maintain their site just like it’s up to Pokemon Co to pursue counterfeiters. For the most part it’s up to them to bring the hammer down.
This reminds me of the “if you don’t like it leave” mentality. If everyone who didn’t like the status quo left there would never be any real change. It’s up to the people who aren’t satisfied to push for change.
Anyway, that was longer than I wanted it to be but I see what you’re saying Scott. It’s alarming how acceptable raffles and the likes have become. Instagram and it’s users need to take control.
Edit: I know I quoted @smpratte but I’m more or less just thinking out loud 
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A “buyback” option is so scammy. Essentially, if chosen, the winner just gambled for money and the host pockets money for nothing.
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I have never had a Instagram account, and I never will. Or Facebook lol.
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What’s this buyback thing?
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instead of getting the item they won, they get X amount of cash instead, so the raffler gets the keep the item and some of the cash
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