A few years ago in my sophomore year of high school I received an Instagram direct message from a close friend of mine saying that he had lost his Steam account and needed my help recovering it. At first I was suspicious so I checked his page. It had a believable amount of followers/following and had all of his posts, so I concluded it was my friend. I was sent a link from that scammer and I clicked it. It turns out that was not my real friend. A scammer had taken his posts and posted them on their profile, then probably botted followers to look real. After I clicked the link nothing came up, and as soon as I returned to Instagram, I was suddenly signed out and could not get back in. Luckily after talking with a support person I was able to recover my account. I think that the only way I could have concluded that it was not really my friend was asking him for something that only him and I would know. Now I am even more cautious of links and will never click a random one again without verifying I know it’s someone I know.
Instagram Scams
You never told me about this Daniel! but I bet that was super stressful in the moment. It’s crazy how convincing scammers can be. But at least now you’ve learned to be much more careful.
Sorry for not saying anything but its fiine cause I didnt lose anything! And yeah SUPER stressful. I’ll always be more careful mom!
Yeah man I’ve seen stuff like this happen to a ton of our friends. You handled it pretty well though, can be tough tryna get an account back. Definitely makin me think twice about DMs now
Dude just be careful out there you know, I cant have you losing YOUR account cause I don’t even have your number lol.
Woah, that’s actually kind of scary how real the account looked. I probably would’ve believed it too. I’ve never seen them take all the posts! But Im glad you were able to get your account back though, cause I know it continues to spread after one gets hacked
There was zero indication it wasn’t him and scared the crap out of me when I was signed out… my heart literally dropped and I started sweating. NEVER AGAIN!
Honestly, that’s the best way to learn your lesson. most people don’t realize how easy it is to fake accounts like that now especially with AI. Asking something only your friend would know is a super duper smart idea daniel
I’ve learned now that’s for sure. I’ve literally been subscribed to Norton antivirus since then because it can be so easy to lose everything you own online with one bad download or link.