Spotting fake collaborations before they get expensive
The more visible you become, the more professional the scam attempts get. The schemes are well known — once you have seen them, you will not fall for them again.
The five most common schemes
- "Buy the product, we'll reimburse you." The reimbursement never comes. Legitimate brands ship products — they do not ask you to pay upfront.
- The freemail brand. The "HelloFresh partnerships team" does not write from @gmail.com. Big brands write from their company domain — and that can be checked.
- The look-alike domain trick. hellofresh-partners.co instead of hellofresh.de. A glance at the linked site's Impressum (legal notice) and a comparison with the official website expose it in two minutes.
- Inflated fee, zero briefing. €2,000 for "a quick post", no product, no concept, but please sign the contract fast? The "contract" is usually a data harvester or the way in for the reimbursement scheme.
- ID and IBAN phishing. "We need a copy of your ID for the payout" — nobody needs your ID before a contract is signed. Your IBAN belongs on the invoice, not in a Google form.
Your 2-minute check
- Sender domain = official company domain? (Not the display name — the actual address.)
- Does the brand's website have a plausible Impressum?
- Does the contact person exist on LinkedIn / the company site?
- Is time pressure being built up? Legitimate campaigns have lead time.
- Are you supposed to spend money first? Then the answer is no.
How StackManagement helps you
Your inbox classifies every message automatically — category and tone at a glance — and filters out spam and harassing messages before they reach the top. It does not do the domain check from the list above for you. Requests from brands that come through StackManagement are additionally company-verified. And when a deal does come together, a contract template is ready that pins down deliverables, usage rights and payment terms — in writing, before you deliver.
This guide explains the legal situation in general terms and to the best of our knowledge. What applies in your specific case is for a tax advisor, a lawyer, or the competent authority to determine — and we tell you in the app when that moment has probably come.
Your inbox sorts for you.
The AI filter keeps spam and harassment out and sorts real requests by category and tone.