Even though I find this method primitive, there are countless people who fall for it on daily basis. In fact, we just had an owner of a big merchandise supply company (out of Europe) almost fall for this very trick. Confused? OK, let me explain how scammers use this method to steal OG Instagram handles.
As you know, OG (original/rare) Instagram handles can be valuable. Short, one-word usernames can sometimes reach five-digit offers. This is why they’re desirable to scammers, and this is why the owners of such handles come under constant attacks or crafty methods of social engineering. The “move account over” scam involves tricking the owner of the account into doing something really silly, which usually means the loss of his account. In order to make this method easy to understand, I will use it in an example.
Popular Instagram scam, in an example:
(The names/@handles are purely fictional and only used as an example).
- The owner of @cars has 1300 followers. Not much, but he was one of the first Instagram users, so he was able to register such a cool name.
- One day, the owner of @cars received a message. It came from an official sounding person who claims he would like to purchase the account on behalf of a big car company. He is willing to offer 50,000 USD for that handle.
- The owner of @cars can’t believe it. I mean, could it be possible? Keep in mind that the owner of @cars isn’t too tech-savvy, he doesn’t know that these accounts can be worth a lot of money. So he goes on a searching spree and finds out people buy/sell Instagram accounts all the time! He gets excited and takes the bait.
- The potential buyer and @cars owner talk for a while, they start trusting each other, they strike a deal.
- The buyer is a nice guy, he mentions that “you can even keep your followers, I just want the @handle”. He also says, “it would be best if you just moved your account now into another handle, before I get the payment ready. This way you will get to keep your followers.”
- Blinded by the offer, the owner of @cars doesn’t think twice and begins to “move” the account by changing the name into something else.
- Once finished, the owner of the account tries to register @cars again so it’s ready for sale. BUT WAIT!! INSTAGRAM SAYS IT’S ALREADY REGISTERED. WTF?!
- The ex-owner of @cars starts panicking, doesn’t know what is going on. Double checks on everything, still nothing. Unable to register.
- The owner contacts the potential buyer, but the buyer isn’t responding anymore.
- If the ex-owner of @cars is smart, he will figure out what happened. If not, he will sit and wonder for weeks what went wrong.
You probably already know what happened. Yes, the buyer was a scammer, his offer wasn’t real, and he tricked the seller to move his account to another handle, to keep his followers. He used that short time where the handle was free to grab to register it himself, thus robbing the original owner of his handle (and dignity).
Think this can’t happen to you? Even though this trick seems easy to spot, for novice users it’s a nightmare. People get blinded by the offers and never think twice that someone is purposely waiting to register that handle in those three minutes when you’re moving your property. This is a frequent scenario, and I am willing to bet many OG @handles were stolen this way.
Some people think this isn’t stealing, as they’ve registered it fair and square, so they can’t be blamed for it. However, I disagree. It’s called deceiving people, and that is fraudulent activity.
That is all. Stay safe!