I paid TikTok $300 to advertise my own videos. They delivered bots, my reach died, and even a fresh account is dead on arrival.

This is not a question. This is a warning for every small creator thinking about paying TikTok to push their videos.

I was a normal user. regularly shopped through TikTok Shop. I was exactly the kind of user this platform supposedly wants.

Then I made the mistake of giving them $300 through their built in tool that pushes your posts to a wider audience.

What I got for my money was bot traffic. Thousands of views, and the only engagement was spam that had nothing to do with the video. Generic copy paste garbage, random emojis, reactions that looked like they were written for a completely different post. Not a single real human. And the moment the campaign ended, my organic reach was executed. Every post after that got 2 views. Two. The algorithm looked at the garbage traffic their own system poured on my account and decided I was the fraud.

I and started fresh with a new email. The new account gets 1 view per post. There is no escape and there is no human in support, just a bot that closes appeals.

They sell you reach. The poisoned account leaves you invisible unless you pay again. It's a protection racket where the protection is from the damage they cause.

My account is gone and I'm done with the platform. I just want this story to exist in public, because when I searched for this before paying, I found almost nothing, and that silence cost me $300 and months of work.

Comments

Sweaty-Ad-116526 days ago1

Dw I don't use the pay thing i just post to make people happy

Flimsy_Musician381026 days ago1

Being a content creator is stupid and unreal

Elinservible26 days ago1

Never ever pay them. Too late

UnluckyGas924426 days ago1

It’s funny I been paying to push my videos and no since I stop I get 2-300 views

rambunctious_lucas26 days ago1

this is exactly why i stopped trusting their ad tools. paid $150 a few months back and got the same bot spam situation you're describing. thousands of views but zero actual interaction, just those copy paste comments that make no sense. soon as it ended my organic reach tanked hard and i couldn't recover it even after waiting weeks. it felt deliberate, like they were punishing me for not continuing to pay.

the wildest part is how there's barely any documentation of this happening until you search deep into forums. tiktok keeps it quiet because the whole system works in their favor. they get your money upfront, tank your account, then you either quit or pay again to fix the damage they caused. the new account approach sucks too because the algorithm seems to flag accounts that recently came from the same device or ip. you're basically locked out either way.

blah19126 days ago1

ChatGPT actually warned me against this and I listened. I have paid, like twice, and only $20 and $10.

Mymilkshakes77726 days ago1

Me and my sister were just talking about this. Thanks for the warning.

Ill_Initial898626 days ago1

Commenting for exposure. Fuk TikTok. Sorry your account got nuked OP.

chomie-ore26 days ago1

This happened to me too!

BigAffectionate478526 days ago1

I am sorry to hear that. Thanks for this valuable info. It may cost you $300, but you saved us 10x the price.