Instagram Scams and Spam: How to Spot Them, Report Them and Block the Sender

Meta’s three rules are slow down (scammers create urgency), spot check (research before clicking), and don’t send (no reputable organization demands payment on the spot).

1. Be suspicious of strangers or “famous people” asking for money, advance fees for a loan or prize, or a “friend or relative in an emergency”.
2. Be suspicious of anyone who wants to move the chat off Instagram, or who wants a romantic connection quickly and then asks for money.
3. Watch for urgent messages saying something is wrong with your account, or asking you to log in to read an “important message”.
4. Meta says people claiming to be from Instagram security who ask for your username or password, or offer verification, are a warning sign; so are unverified accounts claiming to be big companies or public figures, and accounts with no followers, photo or real activity.
5. Buying from someone? On their profile, tap the three dots > About this account to see when the account was created, the country it’s based in, and former usernames.

Meta says it doesn’t have a general public phone number for customer service, and that phone numbers claiming to be Meta support are potentially scams. (Meta notes it may offer specialist phone support in some places or for some products.)

Meta says you can report posts and profiles that don’t follow its Community Guidelines, including for scam, fraud or spam, and profiles that pretend to be someone else.

1. Post: select Options (top right of the post) > Report, then follow the on-screen steps.
2. Profile: go to their profile, select Options next to their username > Report, choose what you’re reporting, then follow the on-screen steps.

Meta says your report is anonymous (except for intellectual property reports), and you may be able to check its status afterwards. Even if nothing is removed, Meta may show you less of similar content.

Meta says you can report comments such as spam, hateful conduct and false information.

1. Open the post’s Comments.
2. On the comment, select Options > Report.
3. Choose why the comment is abusive and follow the on-screen steps.

Meta says that after you report a comment you won’t see it any more, but that doesn’t mean Instagram removed it. You can also restrict or block the person. If it’s on your own post, you can delete it.

Meta says to report the chat rather than the account for problems in messages, because the team that reviews profiles can’t see direct messages.

1. One message: open the conversation, select Options next to the message > Report, choose a reason, follow the steps, then Submit report.
2. Whole conversation: open it, select More information (top right) > Report, choose a reason, follow the steps, then Submit report.
3. Then block the person to stop further messages.

Meta says Instagram reviews up to the 30 most recent messages in a reported conversation, and deleted, unsent or edited messages could be included if the entire chat or a surrounding message is reported. You can’t report a whole group chat, only messages, photos, videos and people in it.

Meta lists several tools to stop spam and unwanted contact.

1. Hidden words and advanced comment filtering (on by default) filter comments and messages that may contain profanity, bullying or spam. Add your own words, emojis or phrases to a custom list. Meta says comments from people you follow and people who follow you aren’t hidden.
2. Limited interactions temporarily stops people who don’t follow you, or who only followed you in the last week, from commenting or messaging you.
3. In your settings, choose who can message, tag, @mention or comment on you; you can also turn off comments on a single post.
4. Review the folder of suspected bots in your followers list and remove and block them at once. Meta also holds suspicious follow requests and spam tags in folders for your review.

Meta says that when you block someone, you can also block any new and existing accounts they may have.