We see them everywhere. VA’s tagging us on Insta. Website promising amazing closet bumps when using their services.
If it sounds too good to be true – IT IS.
Posh has started cracking down HARD on anyone using bots. Accounts are getting suspended (as in, entire closets wiped out) and they’re flagged as bot users and Posh is requiring them to sign an acknowledgement that they will never use a bot again. They’re getting one shot and Posh restores their closets, but if caught again, they will be banned permanently. It’s a start, but is like putting one of those teeny 1″ band aids on a slashed artery.
A “bot” is an application that will share, follow, etc. for you and is purchased from someone else. They’re all over Instagram and they’re targeting the community promising amazing results and increased sales/exposure. They’re also *strictly prohibited* by Poshmark, but they are everywhere and the providers of these bots are growing exponentially every day.
The problem with bots is that they are random programmers who do not work for Poshmark and they’re developing software that is hitting Posh’s network without any knowledge of how Poshmark is actually coded.
That’s a BIG PROBLEM. Posh has to put resources into combatting this problem when it could be using them to create new features!
Posh’s network is set up to accommodate PEOPLE, not bots. The bots overload the servers, eat up all the memory and processors (the engine behind Posh) and essentially wreak havoc. Posh works hard to recover, but that is not an easy process and people are NOT obeying the anti-bot mandates. From a programming standpoint, it’s pretty hard to identify a bot but there are ways (and to protect Posh, I’m not going to tell y’all how they would discover it because I don’t want to give anyone the tools they need to find a bot that would be hard to detect. Love y’all, but mama didn’t raise no fool. 😊).
“So, what does this mean for me?” you ask.
Make good decisions. Use your brain. If we’re being honest it’s unlikely a VA or service is actually making a significant amount of money without using a bot themselves. That is not to say there are some who are successful but if it’s a challenge for everyone else, it’s a challenge for them. There’s a reason why bots were built – because people don’t want to put in the work themselves.
If you’ve hired VA’s (virtual assistants) make sure you’ve done your due diligence. These have been *widely* known to use bots, so if you don’t *really* know your VA or their methods you run the risk of getting your account restricted if they don’t follow the rules. Not to mention, if Posh sees you logging into your account in the US and you’ve hired a company outside the US you are opening yourself up to a whole host of problems and risk that Posh will flag/restrict your account.
And if your entire closet suddenly disappears and you’ve been using a bot – this is why. Email Posh, fess-up (because they already know), delete the sucker and don’t do it again! 😊
ADDITIONAL NOTE. Remember – a plug in is also a “bot”! The bots run as plug ins in your browser and act like you. You have to direct it places. Just because something isn’t labeled specifically for Poshmark doesn’t mean it doesn’t fall under the category as against Poshmark policy. Food for thought.
Poshmark Paige 
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