How to spot a Sweetheart Scammer on Instagram

It’s been a while since I’ve done a post about social media. Although more and more, I feel like everyone needs a bit of social media training. Previously, I’ve talked about Impostor accounts on Facebook, how authors can make the most of Twitter. But I haven’t really done anything on Instagram, and there’s something about Instagram that’s been bugging me lately.

I love Instagram. There is something soothing about scrolling through everyone’s pictures and seeing their work spaces, gardens, bookshelves and pics of where people are finding peace in times like these. It’s also a great place for writers and authors to connect with readers. I share photos of places that inspire me, or quotes from my books. I’ve met a lot of authors this way. And almost all of us have noticed the explosion of scammers that seems to be happening on the platform right now.

The main culprits on Instagram are the Sweetheart or Romance Scammers. These are particularly insidious. They prey on people who are lonely and maybe less internet savvy. According to the Federal Trade Commission, people reported losing up to $201 million to these scams last year. You can find them on many social media platforms and dating sites.

These scams can run for weeks or even months. They involve the scammer starting a conversation the turns into an online romance. They will butter people up, get them hooked and then start asking for money in the form of wire transfers or prepaid gift cards. They give all kinds of excuses for why they need the money. It’s not for them, but their mother needs surgery. They would love to come and visit you, but can’t afford the travel expense, or need a visa. Once the money is obtained the scammer may sting their mark along in the hopes of getting more money out of them or, they may just ghost them. Loneliness is a powerful thing and can lead even intelligent people down the path to ruin. In one extreme example Dr. Paul Frampton fell for a sweetheart scammer who got him to fly to Bolivia and become an unwitting drug mule. He wound up serving two years in an Argentine prison for his trouble.

The FTC has some good information on how to recognize a scam once the conversation has started such as the excuses that scammers give for needing money. Of course, you should NEVER wire money to someone you just met online, or even someone you have been talking to online for months. If you haven’t met them in person, don’t send them money.

But you don’t have to wait until they start asking for money to recognize these scammers. When scammers are creating fake accounts to start these scams they follow a pattern. And that’s what this post is about. How to spot the Sweetheart Scammers on Instagram and what you can do about them.

Almost every woman I know who has an Instagram account has had this happen. You get a new follower and he’s kinda cute. I don’t follow back indiscriminately. His profile pic is of a smiling healthy-looking guy, maybe he’s in scrubs or a uniform. His user name is something like JohnSmith038 or Chris.Jones5429. Sounds totally normal right? Unfortunately for the John Smith’s and Chris Jones’s of the world, it’s very likely someone choosing a normal Anglo-European sounding name to make you think they’re totally a regular American dude looking for love.

Those usernames shouldn’t be deal breakers. There are legitimate people with those names who aren’t trying to catfish you. So, to give them the benefit of the doubt, I click through to look at their profile. Here is where the clues start to become obvious.

They will have fewer than 15 pics on their profile. And the pics they have are all smiling selfies sometimes in uniform or scrubs, or a white lab coat. There are often a pic or two of them doing something outdoorsy like hiking or running. And a lot of them have sports cars in them because I guess, dudes or they’re trying to appear that they aren’t struggling for money. Then there might be a pic or two to show their softer side, a teddy bear holding flowers (not making that up) or a dinner at a fine dining restaurant. What you WON’T see in their pics are kids, or lady friends even a sister, because then they wouldn’t look lonely.

Note: Most of these pics are stolen from the social media profiles of actual people and repurposed by the scammers.

Another possibility is that the account is private so you can’t see their pics. This can actually be alluring. It makes it seem like this person isn’t into social media games, but they’re into you enough to follow someone they don’t even know. Aren’t you special? Or they’re just too lazy to go find pics to copy from someone else’s profile.

And then there are celebrity accounts. I got followed the other day by leonardodicaprio1915 whose bio says he’s an “Actor and Environmentalist”. Those are the exact words of the actual Leonardo DiCaprio’s Instagram bio. The big difference is the blue check mark. That shows that the account has been verified to be that actual person, or their publicist or assistant or whoever does the posting for them. I promise you Leonardo DiCaprio is NOT following me on Instagram. I’ll wager he’s not following the 257 other people that leonardodicaprio1915 is following either.

Then there are the bold ones that slide into your DM’s. You’ll get a notification that you’ve got a message request from someone you don’t follow. You wonder what they want. You can ignore the message request, but if you’re like me and an author, or creator who uses social media to talk to your audience, you’ll probably at least look at it. You go to the message they’ve sent you and it just says, “Hi”, or “Hello”, or if your scammer is really bold “Hi, pretty lady.” These are a blazing red flag. Who the hell just sends a one word message to a person they don’t know? Not even a creepy pick up line. To start the conversation. That is not normal behavior for an American trying to strike up a conversation with a person they don’t know.

So, what do we do about these scammers. If all they do is follow you and don’t try to contact you, you could just ignore them. But then they’ll just move on to try their game on some other unsuspecting person. You can block them, but again that just saves you and they can move on to someone else. So, we should report them, right?

The trouble there is that as far as anyone can see, they haven’t really done anything wrong. If you walk through Instagram’s reporting wizard for reporting a bad account, there are only two options: Pretending to be someone else or Spam. Sure, these scammers are pretending to be someone else, but you can only really prove that with the ones that pretend to be celebrities. If they’re just pretending to be a soldier or a doctor or just a lonely guy looking for his soulmate and you don’t know the person they’re impersonating, how can you report them for that? There’s no, ‘Probably a Sweetheart Scammer’ option. It’s that gray area that allows these scammers to run rampant on social media platforms with very little to stop them, and it’s probably why there is such an explosion of these accounts lately on Instagram. At least half of my recent follows are scam accounts, and many of the women that I follow have commented on roughly the same thing.

I’m not a programmer and can’t give a prescription for what it will take to protect legitimate users from these scammers, but a reporting mechanism for these accounts would be a good start. In the meantime, educate yourself with the signs so you can recognize these scammers before they get a chance to hook you.