# Are there scams that originate from Instagram?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-scams-that-originate-from-instagram/956934>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 30, 2021, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-scams-that-originate-from-instagram/956934 "2021-12-30T17:57:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2021, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-scams-that-originate-from-instagram/956934/1 "2021-12-30T17:57:25Z")

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This may be a dumb question, as scams are everywhere it seems, but if this is one, I’m not seeing the angle.

Okay, so I am selling off a bunch of stuff and one of the places I post these items is on Facebook Marketplace. I recognize the obvious scammers such as “Please text my father at ### as he is interested in this item”. But today I saw responses from a couple of people that apparently originated from Instagram. I started to respond to one, but a warning message popped up telling me that I was responding to an Insta account and that there might be consequences for doing that. So I stopped.

So what is the scam here, if any? Is this just another phishing scheme or something worse? Or is it harmless?

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**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\
**Post date:** [January 2, 2022, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-scams-that-originate-from-instagram/956934/2 "2022-01-02T03:16:28Z")

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Nothing unique to instragram.

maybe the risk is higher because Meta (new facebook company name) is yet to do anti-spam anti-scam to on instagram to the same level as on Facebook

The scam I have seen on instagram is people posting comments saying "@thisaccount gave me excellent financial advice and access to investments. I made $2595trillion in a day ! " so as to bait for people who trust an instagram account with their money.