Misleading TikTok posts are going viral and driving backlash against brands. They’re part of a gift card scheme.

Sephora faced backlash over a firing that may have never happened.

A TikTok account under the name Isla Makeup posted a video on January 18, accusing Sephora of firing her for attending a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest in Minnesota. Over a week later, the video had attracted more than 7.8 million views and thousands of comments.

“I just got fired from Sephora after 10 years working at the Minnesota store,” the long caption read. “The moment my manager found out I went to an ICE protest downtown, everything collapsed.”

The video’s claims may have been fabricated. Sephora said it conducted an internal review and determined that there was no current or former employee by that name. The account that posted the video did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

The caption’s call to action, meanwhile, isn’t a boycott but an opportunity to earn $750 in Sephora gift cards for leaving online reviews.

A cybersecurity researcher told Business Insider that it follows the same pattern as some other marketing tactics that have used social media to gather personal data from users.

The posts typically direct users to a website that collects personal information, such as a user’s full name, phone number, email address, and home address, in exchange for a gift card, John Wilson, a senior fellow in threat research at Fortra, told Business Insider.

In order to receive the payout, the sites may also require you to upload photos of your driver’s license or another ID. Some may ask you to complete tasks that could cost more than the promised reward in time, information, and money, Wilson said.

I filled out the survey with fake information to see what would happen. I was asked for more personal information than I was comfortable providing, including details such as whether I was a homeowner. At the end, I was asked to pay $20 for various services to receive the $750 gift card.

“All of this information will be shared with a wide variety of third-party marketers,” Wilson said. “You will absolutely be bombarded with texts, calls, and emails from the moment you sign up until the end of time.”

Though it appears to be a marketing tactic, Sephora still faced backlash from the post. The top comment — with 70,000 likes — asked if it’s time to start boycotting the beauty giant. Many commenters agreed about canceling Sephora over the alleged firing. The same video was also posted by an account with an identical profile picture under the name Sarah Wilson, but received significantly less attention.

Sephora wasn’t the only brand caught in the crossfire. Another video posted about a week ago claimed that an Ulta employee found ICE agents waiting outside the beauty retailer after a shift. The user accused Ulta of trying to “destroy” their life over unpaid wages and exposed alleged company secrets. One of which was the opportunity to get a $750 Ulta gift card through a website.

Ulta told Business Insider the video was “inauthentic and part of a broader trend of fake accounts on TikTok that overlay alarming text onto unrelated videos to create a false narrative and then drive people to a gift card/promotional offer.”

None of the users behind these videos responded to a request for comment from Business Insider.

It seems the old rule of thumb applies to videos like these that urge people to enter their personal information for a big prize.

“A quick Google search reveals many people reporting scams tied to similar programs,” Wilson said. “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

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