Instagram: A Cautionary Tale About Scams

The topic of Instagram and spam accounts has been on my mind for some time now. Consternations about recent changes in the Instagram algorithms as well as the company’s lack of attention to users’ concerns are among the reasons for this.

In a burst of editorial planning for my blog, I recently revisited topics and content that had been in various stages of development but not yet published. My ideas notebook is full of many past brainstorming efforts and there were some actual draft posts still sitting unfinished. Whilst flipping through the notebook, I saw jotted down among the scribbles a note from about a few years ago for a three-part series on the personal experience of Instagram.

The three aspects that I’d intended to cover included safeguarding your account, a caution about scams, and suggested pointers on engagement. I publish part 1 back in September 2017, part 2 was languishing unfinished and I’d never gotten around to part 3. I’m happy to report that rest of the series is back on the schedule. And even though there are “outfit” photos included, this is not a fashion-related post.

In part 1, Instagram: Guidelines For Safety, I recounted the experience of another Instagrammer whose account had been hacked and was essentially being held for ransom. While I’m no cybersecurity expert, in that post I provided a few tips on how to avoid having the same fate befall you. Those tips are as valid today as they were back then. In this second part of the series, I’ve drawn from a couple of my own troubling experiences in attracting less than legitimate followers.

There are a whole host of scams run on social media platforms. Back in April, yahoo!finance published an overview on the subject titled 9 Instagram Scams You Need To Avoid. It’s a fairly comprehensive list but it doesn’t include the one to which you might be the most vulnerable.

The romance scam has been a persistent problem for years (predates the internet) and seems to only have intensified during the pandemic. From the posts and stories I’ve seen on Instagram, it’s more than likely that you too have been followed and/or contacted in some form by persons of the opposite sex you don’t know and which seemed suspicious. Perhaps, you’ve had a new follower like several of your IG posts and leave a flattering comment (with or without ❤ and 😍). Or you’ve been notified of a DM request. The first time I got a DM notice from someone I didn’t know I was taken aback. Call me naive but it had never occurred to me that someone unconnected to my blogging niche would follow my IG account, much less send me a message.

Curious as to what was up even though I was not remotely actually interested/interested, I replied to one of those messages. From my blog’s IG account. Which has a link to this blog in the bio. Ya, I know but hold a moment on any recriminations. Shortly after, I realized that it wasn’t one of my best decisions. Even so, the exchange between us went on a predictable but short course.

There was a back and forth of some pleasantries and questions. I was of course as vague as I could be and made excuses about being too busy to chat often. After several days of mostly unsubstantial conversation, he was texting about “our relationship and love”. Then there was a request for my email for “easier communication”. That’s when I knew I was in for more than I had bargained. Want to read it for yourself? I’ll gladly oblige as I recorded it in screenshots before I blocked the account. You may need to click on the left arrow until you get the “start here” slide.

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Despite knowing/assuming that the account did not represent a real person, I didn’t yet have a full understanding of how this type of scam works. I convinced myself that my account hadn’t targeted, that it had been chosen randomly. Scammers will find your account by searching on hashtags or by looking at the accounts others are following. By the questions posed regarding marital status and children, it appeared that whoever was behind the account had not looked at my blog or even my account profile. I hadn’t provided any revealing information in our back and forth either. Lessoned learned, right?

Pausing in the story for a bit of levity. Lest you think that was a one-off or that I’m misunderstanding the messages I’ve gotten, let’s take a look at some additional screenshots. Typical DM’s and their respective account profiles are in this first series. The last one also included a few post likes I guess to emphasize his point.

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Occasionally, these potential suitors have an odd way of phrasing their compliments. Take special notice of the message I circled on one of the slides. Indeed! Gray hair does not a grandma make.

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Back to my cautionary tale regarding Instagram scams. Did I learn my lesson? Kind of, sort of, maybe not. While nothing untoward happened because of that incident, the initial curiosity kept gnawing at me. I wanted to know more about how it worked but I couldn’t put myself, my family, my blog at risk. That’s when Susan, my undercover alias, came into being.

After establishing an email account, I was able to sign up for an IG account for Susan. The profile info I included was limited even though I had given thought to what Susan’s backstory would be. I added a few posts with some of the midlife hashtags I normally use. A couple of the photos are old ones of me with dark hair and my face is obscured. I followed a few accounts that I thought might put me on the radar for scammers.

Don’t even ask. Of course, it worked. I’ve got another set of screenshots showing the back and forth exchange that “Susan” had with “Nathan”. Not to worry, it’s G-rated and safe for viewing by all ages. Like the first one, there are several slides in this series so it’s ok to skip on the next part of this post and get caught up on this exchange later. And again, you may need to click on the left arrow until you get the “start here” slide.

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Susan turned out to be quite popular. She had several fine gentlemen try to court her, all without success I might add. There was one in particular that she put through the wringer. He claimed to be a widower and a US Naval surgeon stationed in Iraq with a pre-teen daughter attending boarding school in the UK. After a couple of weeks, his wooing of Susan took a turn

He attempted to get her to send money to the headmaster at his daughter’s school. The funds would be used to buy a cell phone so that his daughter more easily stay in touch with him. Apparently, he was having some issues with his bank accounts being frozen and providing verification of his income and such. Susan stalled and dragged out her response, offering other solutions for him on how to resolve the problem. Finally, when she compared him to her ex-husband who had been emotionally abusive and nearly ruined her financially, he backed off on that request but continued to chat with her. He tried to get Susan to move the conversation to hangouts which she resisted in doing. It all ended when he couldn’t get Susan to do as he asked and she called him out on the scam.

Which brings me to the point of these scams, money. After a brief wooing period, the conversation will evitably turn to a request or plea for financial assistance. It might be small at first, so as to test the waters. In researching the subject, I’ve found stories of women (and men) who ultimately were scammed out of a lot of money and by a suitor that they never actually met. They had fallen victim to a scheme intended to tug on their heartstrings. But what’s behind these scams?

A quick review of the Insights from my IG account from late July bears out what was reported in Look Inside The Secret Lives Of Instagram, Facebook Scammers published last summer on Forbes. Many of these scam accounts originate in African nations, mostly Nigeria. I currently have about 1,700 followers on my account and those from Nigeria make up about 17% of them. That’s nearly 300. While intriguing, let’s now look at the breakdown of age ranges by gender of my followers.  More current Insight stats show me that 71% of my followers are women and that close to 2/3 of them are 45 or older, as expected. Of the 500ish male followers, 60% of them are between the ages of 18 and 34. One of those is my son but he’s not trying to scam me (I think).

Insight stats are only available for “business/professional” IG accounts and not “personal” ones so you may not be able to this kind of information for your own account. The IG account I have associated with my Poshmark efforts has far few followers than my Fine.Whatev account. It also has far fewer scammers following it and over 95% of the following accounts are US based.

Once you know what to look for, these scam accounts are fairly easy to spot. If provided in their profile, the occupation will most likely be doctor, engineer, and/or military (some will double-dip) as well being deployed or stationed away from home. Most are widowers whose wife died tragically and they have a kid or two. But most importantly, they’re looking for that special person who will happiness to him and blah, blah, blah. Many of their posts have hearts and/or and/or cute animals and/or flowers and quotes about romance, love, and trust. Some of their posts (often with no captions) show their lives as doctors/engineers/military or children they refer to as their own and love desperately.

So what’s to be done about these accounts? Apparently, not much by Instagram from the looks of it. Most of these followers on my blog IG account are regularly reported as spam especially if they’ve had the audacity to send me a DM. There was a time when IG was regularly knocking down reported accounts. I found that the newer/fresher the account appeared to be, the quicker it would be confirmed as spam. Here’s the process on how to report an account as spam if you don’t know how it’s done.

Looks pretty easy to get a resolution, right? Well, it was until COVID-19. Back in April or May, the response message to the reporting of a spam account indicated that due to limited resources and shifting priorities, those types of reports would be low in the action file. Although I no longer see that message, my experience has been that far fewer reports of spam accounts are being acted upon. Fortunately, IG is addressing accounts that are impersonations. There was one for my account that I reported about a week ago and it was taken down in less than 3 hours.

Romance scams are just a drop in the bucket of how a person can be taken advantage of through social media. Bottom line, be aware. There are ways to limit your vulnerability and there is no shame in verifying the authenticity of anyone trying to contact you. Or ignoring anyone that you did not invite into your life. Instagram is not a suitable or reparable substitute for online dating.

I thank you if you’ve stuck with me to the end on this post. And yes, Susan is still around, fighting the good fight again Instagram scammers. Now be like Susan and report on a few of your own.

Be well and let’s stay in touch! Subscribe, tweet, follow, friend, pin … all options are available. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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