According to Liza Minnelli, money makes the world go round. The major issue is essentially, how people make this money. Today another scheme has surfaced, with Instagram scammers finding ways to get paid to ban and recover accounts.

Instagram Scammers are Getting Paid To Ban and Recover Accounts

According to The Motherboard, there is an industry abusing Instagram’s mechanisms for removing impersonating content to harass users on the platform. According to screenshots, interviews, and other material by Motherboard, some users are purposefully targeting and banning Instagram accounts at will.

These scam artists are setting up and advertising professional ban-as-a-service offerings so anyone can harass or censor others. According to their listing, War charges $60 (KES 6200) per ban. One advertisement reads:

Start off your week with tech news recap and trending conversations in your inbox

Enter valid email-id

Subscribe

I prefer it on Telegram

“We have been professionally banning since 2020 and have top-tier experience. We may not have the cheapest prices, but trust me you are getting what you are paying for.”

How It Works

The scammers note that users target their exes or people they have a grudge against. Sometimes it’s even just to ruin someone’s business Maybe ruining their business. To do this, they use an impersonation method. They get a verified Instagram account and change their profile to look exactly like the target’s account. This includes the bio, name, profile photo, etc. They then go ahead to report the target for impersonation once, and boom, they are gone.

Some even go to the extent of fraudulently reporting accounts for violating Instagram’s policy on suicide or self-injury. After this, the same scammers who offer ban-as-a-service also offer to restore accounts for users. This will cost them more, ranging up to KES 300,000.

Instagram notes that it is investigating sites that offer to ban Also, if you notice such behaviour, you should report people you suspect are guilty of this kind of activity.