How to Tell If an Instagram Account Is Fake
It’s no secret that Instagram is full of fake accounts, bots, and impersonators. Just take a look at any comment section of any popular post and you will see that it is teeming with craving traps and crypto tycoons. But there are far more sophisticated fake accounts that have mastered the art of appearing genuine on a social network, and it can be hard to tell if they are real or not and fool you.
Most of these criminals offer some kind of “service” that requires you to place an order or hand over sensitive information, from the more innocuous (your email address or phone number so they can add you to their spam list) to the potentially dangerous (two-factor verification code or banking information). Some of these accounts are built with such precision that the usual rules of thumb – look at their profile photos, check their posting frequency, consider their follower-to-follower ratio and overall app activity – won’t always help you. distinguish the real from the fake. Fortunately, there is a better way to weed out these accounts.
Fake Instagram account markers
In an Instagram profile, you will be able to click on these three dots, which will open a menu of options. Do this and select “about this account” to find the three important data Instagram provides to you. The first is the “date of accession”. Most fake accounts will be relatively new as scammers tend to create new accounts whenever they are caught. What is considered “new” will depend on the context of the account and what they are promoting. But if the account is less than a year old, that’s a potential red flag.
The next important point is the “account based on” information. The video above, from Instagrammer Openigloo, shows you what to look out for here. If you’re looking for a rental account in New York but it’s in Nigeria, fine. (Be aware that some scammers choose not to share the account location in their settings, so check that as well, and be careful if anything else seems suspicious.)
The last detail to check is the “former usernames” field. This may be the most telling of all – while it’s clear that the account may have been created recently and be legitimate, when you pair “date of join” with “former usernames” you can get a clearer picture of the account. owner history – because when a scammer has been caught as a scammer, changing the username can be a simple and quick fix to start over without having to start all over again. If the account has had more than a couple of changes, that’s another reason to be suspicious.
While these three data points cannot definitively determine whether an account is fake or not, they are all factors worth considering before you decide to trust your account with your data.