| If you're finding value in our Creator Economy newsletter, I encourage you to consider subscribing to The Information. It contains exclusive reporting on the most important stories in tech. Save up to $250 on your first year of access. Hello! Online retailers are battling the rise of "refund groups" that carry out scams on a large scale, often coordinating through apps like Telegram, as I reported this morning. One of the most interesting aspects of this trend is how fraudsters, rather than trying to keep scams under wraps, are eager to broadcast them online. So how did we get here? To start, personal finance "finfluencers" and other creators often gain big followings by touting legitimate tips to save money, which has normalized sharing money hacks online in general. They include Erika Kulberg, who has more than 9 million followers on TikTok and posts videos on topics like maximizing airline loyalty points and credit card benefits. One of Kulberg's most popular videos, with over 75 million views, instructs viewers on how to get a free pair of Nike shoes or a gift card by returning defective shoes under the company's manufacturing warranty. Kulberg, who has a legal background, isn't promoting anything criminal. But some money-focused social media trends quickly cross the line into fraud. That includes the organized refund scammers I wrote about, who exploit merchants with generous return policies to get refunds even if they send back used merchandise or empty boxes. In the same vein, TikTok accounts promoting tips for "refunding methods" and getting "free" products like AirPods have attracted tens of thousands of followers. And this summer, viral TikTok videos and posts on X about an "infinite money glitch," some of which racked up millions of views, instructed people to cash fraudulent checks at ATMs. This week, JPMorgan Chase started suing alleged fraudsters it says ripped the bank off with the scheme. Similar to creator "haul" videos, which popularized showing off legitimate shopping sprees, members of the refund groups also brag in posts known as "vouches" that show others what they can get through the scams. One vouches channel on Telegram I reviewed has hundreds of members and photos of items that users claim came from Nike, Ikea, Ruggable, Yeti and Fanatics. Interestingly, many scammers justify their schemes as a form of consumer advocacy that's fighting back against big, faceless companies, rather than acts of fraud. One refund group on Telegram described itself as a mob of angry customers who "want their money back" from "evil greedy companies." Online merchants are trying to stamp out fraud by making their returns policies tougher and delaying refunds, but cracking down too hard can spark viral blowback. Last month, lifestyle creator Brittany Paige shared a video on TikTok telling her more than 30,000 followers not to shop at Saks Fifth Avenue, saying the store didn't let her return dresses she had briefly tried on at home. The video currently has over 630,000 views. Kartinah Smith, the director of operations at workwear brand MM LaFleur, said striking the right balance on fraud is particularly challenging with "new or new-ish" customers. "This is a group we want to win over and retain through product and customer experience," she said. At the same time, shoppers without a purchase track record with the company are also more likely to be scammers, Smith said. Here's what else is going on… Once again, Meta Platforms spent a lot of time on its quarterly earnings call talking about—you guessed it—artificial intelligence. Besides jacking up its spending, AI is also helping the company achieve one of its key objectives: getting users to stay on the app. AI has contributed to improvements in video recommendations, which has helped increase time spent on Facebook's video player by 10% this month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a call with analysts. Previously, Meta used a separate recommendation system for each app. But now, inspired by the large datasets used to train Llama, its open-source language model, the company is looking into recommendation models that could be trained on larger amounts of data from across the company's apps. Meta executives also crowed about the rising popularity of Threads, its competitor to X (formerly Twitter). The app now has over 275 million monthly active users, said Zuckerberg, and it is on track to being "our next major social app." Threads had fewer than 200 million MAU as of Meta's second quarter earnings report and is now growing by over a million users a day, said Zuckerberg. But CFO Susan Li later cautioned that, "as it pertains to monetization, we don't expect Threads to be a meaningful driver of 2025 revenue." —Rocket Drew See The Information's Creator Economy Database for an exclusive list of private companies and their investors. Duetti, a startup that helps musicians monetize and market their music catalogs, raised $34 million in equity funding from investors including Flexpoint Ford and Nyca Partners. Final Boss Sour, a snack brand that aims to be a healthier alternative to traditional sour candy, announced $3 million in seed funding from investors including Liquid Death backers Science Inc. and DJ Steve Aoki's VC firm. The brand, which aims to cater to gamers and other online communities, said it will use the funds to expand distribution and strike partnerships with content creators. Dude Perfect is planning an 80,000-square-foot production facility in Frisco, Texas. The YouTube comedy group will use the space to film its own content, and also rent some out to other brands, creators and production companies. That's the percentage that luxury fashion brand Miu Miu said sales rose in the third quarter from a year earlier, helping its parent company Prada Group buck a broader sales slowdown for designer brands. Miu Miu accessories like $440 nylon keychains, $505 eyeglasses and $3,000 handbags have exploded in popularity on social media and with Gen Z shoppers. Cami Téllez has joined hosiery brand L'eggs as executive creative director and a board adviser, after private equity firm Windsong Global acquired the brand from Hanes earlier this year. Téllez is the founder and former CEO of Parade, a Gen Z- and creator-favorite lingerie brand that sold to wholesaler Ariela & Associates last summer. "Those last scenes with me looking like a lonely old lady walking hunched over in the garden? Boy, I told him to get rid of those. And he refused. I hate those last scenes. Hate them." Businesswoman and lifestyle influencer Martha Stewart was reacting in a New York Times interview to the new Netflix documentary about her life, which she claims she gave filmmaker R.J. Cutler "total access" for. Thank you for reading the Creator Economy Newsletter! I'd love your feedback, ideas and tips: kaya@theinformation.com. If you think someone else might enjoy this newsletter, please pass it forward or they can sign up here: https://www.theinformation.com/newsletters/creator-economy | 
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