If you trust an influencer’s skin care recommendation, would you trust them with your financial information? That’s what Danielle Bernstein, founder of WeWoreWhat, is betting on. Earlier this month, the influencer and designer announced she is partnering with fintech company Imprint on the WeWoreWhat Rewards Visa® Card, the first of its kind. The card offers WeWoreWhat fans extra cash back on her brand, as well as a curated list of businesses. The Magnises vibes are strong, but is the card really a one-way ticket to Scam City?
Although Business of Fashion declared in a headline, “Danielle Bernstein Is Launching A WeWoreWhat Credit Card,” The WeWoreWhat rewards card is not a credit card—at least, not yet. For now, it’s a debit rewards card that allows users to sign up by downloading the Imprint app and linking their bank account, a process a spokesperson for Imprint likened to joining Venmo. Some Instagram commenters are leery of handing over the keys to their debit cards to Bernstein, and one Instagram commenter wrote, “I would not trust her with my financial information”—but Bernstein herself is not receiving anyone’s bank account information. Imprint, a fintech company that started in 2020, is. Bernstein’s is their first influencer rewards card, although the company has also partnered with hospitality brand Selina, and RealSelf, an online directory of cosmetic procedure providers.
In addition to receiving a $10 welcome bonus, users can earn 10% cash back on purchases at WeWoreWhat (Bernstein does not otherwise receive a portion of purchases made via the card), 5% at various partner brands, and 1% everywhere else. Partner brands include scene-y NYC restaurants like Lola Taverna and Jack’s Wife Freda, and Instagram-friendly brands like What Goes Around Comes Around and Stephanie Gottlieb Jewelry. Unlike a cash rewards credit card, the cashback earned via the WeWoreWhat Rewards Visa® Card can’t actually be deposited into a cardholder’s bank account, just redeemed on future purchases at WeWoreWhat or any of the other partner brands.
“WeWoreWhat is always looking for new ways to give our community innovative value, benefits, and experiences,” Bernstein told BusinessWire. “I love that we will not only reward WeWoreWhat’s loyal customers but also provide them exclusive benefits across all of the brands and restaurants that are a part of my daily life,” she added. At the time of publication, Bernstein did not respond to a request for comment about the reception of the card or details about the credit card.
Sarah DelRosso, 29, has been following Bernstein on Instagram since 2020 and has purchased a few items from WeWoreWhat. “I actually love her brand,” she says. DelRosso signed up for the card last week, shortly after it was announced, which she says was “a pretty straightforward process.” The decision to sign up “was kind of a no-brainer,” she says, “because I shop at a lot of the same places that shops.” (DelRosso regularly eats at Jack’s Wife Freda and goes to Maman on weekends.) She doesn’t use her credit card much and likes how the WeWoreWhat Card is “basically an extension of your debit card,” or similar to using Apple Pay.
So: is it a scam?
“Generally speaking, if you’re looking for rewards, a credit card is a better choice,” says Matt Schulz, Chief Credit Analyst at Lending Tree, adding, “Although this WeWoreWhat card is an example of how that’s changing some.”
“I think that if you’re somebody who spends a lot of money with WeWoreWhat, you could do worse,” he says, noting that getting 10% back on a debit card is “really interesting.” Debit rewards in general are hard to find, and even on a credit card, users would typically see somewhere from 1%-3% cashback offered. That said, if you’re not a fan of the Bernstein-approved brand of Instagram traps, the card won’t offer you much.
Some people are skeptical, though, so much so that Bernstein limited comments on her post announcing the card. Some took their concerns to Twitter. “Billy McFarland who?” replied one Twitter user to Business of Fashion’s tweet. “Talk about predatory lending!” wrote another. (No lending is involved—at least not yet. “When a transaction is made with the card, funds are automatically transferred from a user’s bank account, which means they can never overspend and don’t need to worry about overdrafting or fees,” said the Imprint spokesperson.)
“I think a lot of the fiery comments that are out there are simply based on a misunderstanding of the difference between a credit card and a debit card,” Schulz says. That said, celebrity cards—credit or otherwise—do have a checkered past, so some distrust is natural. The Kardashian Kard, a prepaid debit card that launched in 2010 and shuttered weeks later, was declared “a rip-off” by Forbes due to its exorbitant activation and monthly fees. Perhaps the most well-known of the celebrity card catastrophes is the RushCard, started by Russell Simmons in 2003, which infamously caused chaos for some 400,000 users in 2015 when a software glitch left users unable to access their money for weeks.
“It’s wise for people to be skeptical when they see offers from really anybody,” Schulz says, adding, “But it is also important to understand that just because something is from a celebrity doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s sketchy.”
For some people, though, which celebrity a card comes from does matter, and Bernstein herself has had her fair share of controversies in recent years that have lost her some public trust. In late 2020, she was sued by a Brooklyn-based lingerie company, The Great Eros, for allegedly copying their designs. (Bernstein denied any allegations of theft.) In July 2020, she was accused of ripping off a small business’s mask design after she’d previously reached out to the business requesting samples of their masks. Bernstein, however, responded, “the accusation that I stole or solicited the designs are false and I have shared receipts of emails proving that these claims are not true.” She later donated all the masks and also donated 5,000 surgical masks to frontline healthcare workers. In 2018, several pieces from Bernstein’s jewelry line, which was a collaboration with Lulu DK, were pulled from Nordstrom after she was accused of copying the designs from other brands. Even amidst all the controversies, Bernstein’s large following has continued to grow, and she currently has 2.8 million Instagram followers.
DelRosso says the controversies haven’t impacted her decision to support Bernstein’s brand. “I feel like when you’re an influencer, there’s always going to be some negative press to whatever you do.”
“I’m gonna continue to buy things from her brand because I like supporting her brand,” she says.
When asked if she felt any hesitation to get the card, DelRosso said, “It looked like a reliable app. And I downloaded the app before I linked my debit card, and nothing really looked suspicious to me.”
As far as the credit card aspect goes, Business of Fashion reports a WeWoreWhat Visa Rewards Credit Card is planned for “later this year” and said, “terms for the credit card are still being ironed out, though they will not include an annual fee, foreign transaction fees, or balance transfer fees.”
If a credit card does come to fruition, that’s where things could potentially get dicier. The absence of an annual fee isn’t really a selling point, since that’s common for retail credit cards. “The main issue is almost always the interest rate,” says Schulz.
“The average rate on a new store credit card is about 24% and can go up to near 30%. That’s a really, really high number and is even higher than what we see on other types of credit cards,” he says. And while consumers can avoid incurring those interest rates by paying off their balance in full each month, sometimes life gets in the way. The credit card could be appealing to WeWoreWhat fans, though, if the cashback percentage is the same as the debit card. “If the interest rates are as high as those on most retail cards, however, folks may be better served looking elsewhere.”
A spokesperson for Imprint declined to comment on how many users have signed up for the WeWoreWhat Rewards Visa® Card since its launch. And whether it’s a credit card or a debit card, Schulz advises consumers to do their research and proceed with caution. “Anytime you’re giving your bank account information to a company, that’s something to not enter into lightly,” he says. “While a debit card doesn’t you to run up tons of debt that you can’t pay, it does make it a lot easier to spend money in your account, and that can cause all sorts of issues in and of itself. So, it is important for you to be careful about who you give your financial information to who you trust online.”
Bottom line, “If something doesn’t feel right, or you don’t quite trust a company, a bank, a retailer—trust your gut and take your business elsewhere.”
Images: Presley Ann/Getty Images for REVOLVE
Hope you’re having a good Friday, because someone is getting fired today!
If you follow fashion influencer and entrepreneur Danielle Bernstein of WeWoreWhat, you know that she has a line of bathing suits with swimwear brand Onia that’s coming out. Well, an employee at Onia accidentally took a batch of unreleased samples (instead of old/leftover samples) of WeWoreWhat x Onia swimwear that isn’t coming out for another two whole seasons to Goodwill. OY. Yes, this is the person that’s getting fired. But this isn’t about the employee who massively f*cked up, but rather, what happened when a user on Poshmark stumbled upon the yet-to-be-released collection.
While the accidental Goodwill drop-off probably doesn’t sound like too big of a deal at first, because let’s face it, the fashionistas of the world aren’t out here bargaining at Goodwill around the clock, it became an issue when fashion reseller Jade (@fashionwithouttrashin) bought the swimsuits to re-sell on her Poshmark site. She probably didn’t know that the collection was yet to be released to the public, so it’s not her fault for putting it up and thinking she’d scored a great find.
Danielle caught wind that her unreleased samples were being sold on Poshmark, and of course DMed Jade asking her to take them down. On Danielle’s IG Stories, she discusses how she “messaged Jade in full panic mode,” which like, any of us would be. I’m in “full panic mode” when I make a typo in a tweet, so I can’t even imagine. Amidst the panic, Danielle asked Jade where she got the samples, told her she’d buy all of the product back “at cost”, and kind of just kept saying “omg!!”.
Now things start to get really messy (because oh, sometimes conversations get misconstrued over Instagram DM if you’re foreign to the concept): Jade asked Danielle to pay her back at the resale value, aka the amount it cost her to purchase the swimwear, pay her employees for “modeling, editing and listing the items,” and account for what she would have made if she had sold the product. Aka not simply what she paid for the swimsuits. This came out to $13,000.
(I think she meant “cooperation”, not “corporation”.)
So basically, there was a total miscommunication over the whole $13,000 amount. Danielle claimed that she missed the word “resale” in those initial messages, so she was shocked when Jade wanted $13,000, and she pushed back at that figure. Danielle’s pushback led to a bunch of crying IG Stories from Jade that I didn’t have the fortune of watching in full—because I’ve got an article to write!—bashing Danielle/Onia, and saying that she basically felt like the little guy that’s being bombarded by the huge force that is WeWoreWhat. From there, it got picked up by social media, people started leaving mean comments, and then both ladies had to respond via a sh*t ton of selfie video Instagram stories to get everyone to cool off.
I legit feel terrible for both sides. Danielle posted an emotional video explaining how hurt she is that people don’t think she supports female entrepreneurs. And I can totally see how it’s super intimidating for Jade, who puts a lot of time and effort into her business on Poshmark, to be caught up in a messy situation with someone as influential as Danielle Bernstein.
Some of the stories are still up, if you want to go watch all the crying firsthand. But for now, it seems like all is well—the swimsuits have been removed from Poshmark, and both Jade and Danielle posted on IG that it was a true miscommunication and they don’t wish each other any ill will. The lawyers are handling it at this point, meaning my job here is probably done.
Meanwhile, I’ll be saving up my money so I can buy WeWoreWhat swim in two seasons. Just prob not from Goodwill.
Images: Shutterstock; fashionwithouttrashin, dietprada / Instagram;
It’s not all fun and flat tummy tea when it comes to being a successful influencer—in fact, it actually takes a ton of hard work. If you want to actually make money off of posting cute pictures, it takes more than just being pretty. This week we had Danielle Bernstein from We Wore What on our When’s Happy Hour podcast to talk about how she’s built her career as an entrepreneur.
Danielle didn’t just wake up one day and decide to post sick pics. She started We Wore What 10 years ago as a sophomore in college after transferring from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to FIT. Upon arriving in New York, Danielle realized there are people who actually get dressed and look cute to go to class. (The horror.) To inspire her basic friends back at Wisco to ditch their leggings and UGGs, she started a street style blog to showcase her peers’ outfits.
Eventually, as her style developed, Danielle turned the camera around on herself and transformed We Wore What into a personal style blog. She now has her own line of overalls and swimwear and has been named a Forbes 30 Under 30. So, how does she do it, and like, could you? Here’s are some of the highlights from our podcast with Danielle. For all the tricks for being successful, you’ll have to listen.
- Danielle hates the word blogger, she’s an entrepreneur (get it right, duh)
- “Know your worth and know your value” — your time and expertise are worth something (and that something is cash $$$)
- Be a fearless networker (you’ll have to listen for the full scoop on this)
- Talk to people about themselves cause everyone’s a narcissist (and do your research)
- Danielle shares, “everyone and their mother wants to be a blogger right now” so you need to find a way to stand out and look for a niche that only you can fill
- Your authenticity is your greatest value as an influencer, so learn when to say no to brands that don’t fit
- Danielle has tried the hair bear gummies and they don’t f*cking work
- Danielle loves meeting her followers and says “they’re always so cute and well dressed”—great work, guys!
- Even when you’re famous, haters can still get you down, and for Danielle, they do sometimes. But Danielle lives by the motto that “haters mean you’re doing something right”, so embrace the hate and learn why it’s actually making you more successful.
- Posts that will always fail on your Instagram: things that look too much like an ad—huge pet peeve of Danielle’s (and like, everyone)
- Just because it’s Instagram doesn’t mean you don’t have to be professional
- Get Danielle’s interview tips and tricks as well as her favorite questions to ask while searching for her own interns
For more career advice from Danielle, (and us, duh) listen to our When’s Happy Hour podcast below.
If you need even more advice (let’s be honest, we all do), order our book, When’s Happy Hour?. To follow Danielle, check out her Instagram.
I’m back, and as promised, I have three more blogger-inspired looks that you can recreate for way less than these fashion bloggers spent. I get that keeping up with trends can be almost as hard as keeping up with your new boyfriend’s ex, so leave them to me and you can keep refreshing her Instagram in peace.
One trend I’m really loving right now is hats. Hats have become a staple in my wardrobe recently, and not just because I need to cover up my dry shampoo overload. Every fashionista seems to be rocking them in different ways, but not all hats are created equal. One wrong purchase and bam, you’re an extra in Newsies, or like, my dad. This week, I’m taking three different fashion bloggers’ looks that incorporate a hat, and breaking down just how much money you’ll save getting the look for less. You and your bank account are welcome in advance.
Look 1: The Bodega Beret
My first blogger is We Wore What. I feel like Danielle (yes, I’m on a first name basis with her in my mind) has a style that is very NYC. If I want to be the ~cool fashion girl~ in flats and a hat, I look to her. She inspired this week’s bodega cool-girl look. Here’s how much her look will run you.
Shoes: Jeffrey Campbell, $150-$250
Jacket: Tome NYC, $400-1,000.
Bodysuit: Wearcomando, $74
Total: $1,324
Here’s my version, the look for less. I topped this look off (literally) with a beret and sunglasses from Amazon. Spoiler alert: you’ll like the price tag a lot more.
Shoes: Public Desire, $59.99
Jacket: My jacket is almost TEN years old (gotta love vintage), but here is a similar one from Forever 21 for only $24.
Bodysuit: Naked wardrobe, $34
Total: $118
Look 2: Shine Betch Shine
Next is Shay Mitchell. Shay isn’t just an actress, model, CEO, entrepreneur, and brand ambassador; she’s also The Head Pro’s girlfriend a fashion blogger. Shay’s style is always on trend, and to me, it always seems like she has the perfect outfit for every occasion. She’s downtown chic with uptown class. Not to mention she’s gorgeous, and everything looks great on her (I promise I’m not trying to date her). But for real, she has a very cool, edgy style—overpriced, but cool. Here’s how much her look will cost you.
Bag: Chanel, $3,000
Pants: Petar Petrov, $1,435
Belt: Gucci, $450
Total: $4,885
I know Gucci belts are all the rage right now, but in a few months no one is going to even remember them. Why spend your hard-earned vodka soda money on something that probably won’t even hold up your pants all that well? For the pants, I found almost an exact copy on the cheap. And ASOS is my favorite for hats right now. Your bank account is going to personally write me a thank you note.
I love anything shiny… pants, hats, a new Hinge match. This look is great for the seamless transition from daytime brunch to 2:00am “ u up” texts. Here’s my rockstar-inspired look:
Here’s how much my look cost me.
Bag: Zara bag, $55.90
Pants: Topshop, $60
Belt: Zara, $50
Hat: ASOS, $26 (Note: The hat in my photo is currently sold out, so I found you this cool replacement)
Total: $160
Look 3: Business, But Make It Fashion
Jourdan Sloane is the last blogger this week, but certainly not the least. Jourdan’s style is effortlessly trendy. She’s the girl who walks in and says, “Oh this? I just threw this on and it happens to be super on trend and super fucking cool.” This is what I try to achieve every Friday night in hopes of getting free shots. She was the inspo for my last hat trend look this week, and certainly didn’t disappoint. It’s very edgy, but sometimes you need to be bold and channel your inner Elle Woods, aka show up in a blazer ready to argue.
Here’s how much this look cost her.
Shoes: Dior, $800
Bag: Givenchy, $2,450
Blazer: Vintage, so it basically cost her an arm and a leg or maybe her first born.
Total: $3,250
In reality, I wouldn’t wear this to your next meeting unless you want to be fired immediately, and maybe you do. In which case, go for it! I threw on a beanie with this to stay on brand with the hat trend, and also because I need to buy more dry shampoo. But I think this outfit is perfect for a Thursday night downtown sushi spot, or maybe an art event where you pretend to know what’s going on.
Here’s how much this look cost me.
Shoes: $89.90; you can find pumps similar to mine here.
Bag: Forever 21, $24.90
Blazer: Zara, $50; I found you an even cheaper one for $24.43 from Forever 21.
Beanie: Zara, $17.90
Total: $139
Happy shopping betches! May your looks be Instaworthy, and your wallets full.
Images: Eli DeFaria /Unsplash; Maya Butler (3)
Betches may receive a portion of revenue if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. The links are independently placed and do not influence editorial content.
