Hi, everyone!
Today I want to tell you about a recent experience I had with account cloning. Yes, my Instagram Business account was cloned a few weeks ago. This took me by surprise, to say the least, so I started to find out more about what happened to me and see if there was anything we could do to prevent it from happening.
Account cloning is a deceptive technique used by scammers to create a copy of an Instagram (or Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) account without the owner’s consent. They copy the name, profile photo, personal information, and perhaps even some old posts to make the account seem as authentic as possible. The bad actors then use this cloned account to make follow requests to that person’s real contacts, fooling them into connecting. And once they’ve lured your friends in, cybercriminals try to exploit this trust for monetary scams or hacking their Instagram credentials.
So, that is what happened to me. Account cloning is different from account hacking. When someone hacks your account, you lose control of your account, and most likely you won’t be able to get it back.
Whoever did this, opened a fake account using my profile picture, my bio information (including my link in bio!), my account name, and my stories’ covers, and even managed to upload around 65 of my most recent posts the same day the account was opened. The only thing they changed: they added an extra “e” to my username.
I would not have become aware of this if it wasn’t for a lovely colleague who contacted me. You see, the person who opened the account blocked me out from the get-go, so there was no way that I was going to find it. Also, I couldn’t report it. So, right away I posted a story with a screenshot that this colleague sent me of that account, and asked people to please not follow it and to report it so Instagram could remove it. The response was so overwhelming that the account was removed that same night! I want to thank all my wonderful followers on Instagram who really supported me through this.
Of course, I was happy that the account was removed quickly and before the people behind it could do anything against my followers. But I was also mad! Why me? Why my account? I have a small account with a little over 3,400 followers. I am not an influencer, I don’t sell products or anything like that. But someone said to me, “They can see that you work, that you generate money, that people ask you for advice.” After reading that, I saw that definitely, my account was generating attention, just not the attention I would have wanted.
Still, who are these people? I mean, who spends days, probably weeks, lurking into accounts, seeing which ones they can hack or clon. And then, to dedicate hours of their time to opening the account, making sure every detail is perfect, and uploading over 60 posts in a matter of hours? I mean, if I had that time to spare I would spend it working on something legal, not trying to hurt someone’s reputation.
Anyway, I felt frustrated for a couple of days. I have two-step verification so they were not able to hack into my account, but they did the next bad thing: clone it. I received several tips from different people, and here are some tips on what to do to keep your account from being cloned (again in my case):
Apply for Instagram’s free verification badge. Now, this badge is only for “influential and distinguished people and organizations” so it is a long shot. I applied and my application was denied in a matter of a few days because I “didn’t meet the requirements”.
Get Meta Verified. Now, this is a paid version of the verification badge. I am still unsure if I want to pay close to $15/month or more for it. I mean, I am not sure how “safe” my account will become after getting it. I’ll keep you posted on that.
Turn your public account into a private one. The whole idea of having my business account as public is to connect with more colleagues and potential clients. If I turn it private, that would stop, as well as many other perks. But having a public account definitely makes you vulnerable to cloning, hacking, and more of that stuff.
Beyond that, there isn’t much more that you can do. I will wait for a few months, and see how things go. However, if that happens to me again, I will have to make a decision to either get Meta Verified (although I am not sure if it is available for Business accounts and in my country) or go private.
I’d love to hear from you! If you’ve had your account cloned, please leave what your experience was like in the comments. Also, let me know if you are Meta Verified and if it is worth it.
Thanks to Day Translations for sponsoring this post! Make sure to click the link to find out more about the services they offer.
Until next time, take care and stay safe (your accounts included)!
XX
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