Small business Instagram account hacked, allegedly defrauding customers

A Toronto small business owner says he is among the numerous Instagram users who fell victim to an ongoing scam that saw his account hacked and taken over by a scammer.

Like most who have lost control of their accounts to such fraudsters, Brian Clish received a message from a friend’s Instagram account asking for some help which involved a link via text, which he was then asked to send back – in this case it was purportedly to help his friend get verified on Instagram.

“What I sent back was like the key to my Instagram account,” said Clish, who soon realized his friend’s account had also been hacked.

Clish received emails saying the email and phone number attached to his Instagram account had been changed and he was effectively no longer in control of the Instagram account for Era Antiques — a page he set up four years ago for an antiques business he established in 1997.

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Thereafter, Clish says the hacker who took over his account sent messages to over 1,000 of his followers about investing in bitcoin and posted photos with similar messaging on his page. However, unlike most other reports of such hacks, the scammer also pretended to run the business, posing as Clish.

“If you reach out to this person and say ‘I’m interested [in a product],’ he comes up with a price, he promises immediate delivery upon payment,” he explained.

Clish says a friend and client who knew the account had been hacked reached out about a mirror listed on the page to see what he could find out about the hacker. He was quoted a price of $2,000 for the piece that Clish had listed at $500 and provided bank transfer details for an account in Houston.

Another friend also communicated with the hacker, asking what needed to be done to return control of the account to Clish. The hacker once again demanded $2,000 to relinquish his hold on the account.

Clish says he believes people have fallen for the scam artist’s tricks because the hacker reached out to him on his new Instagram account to gloat.

“I opened a new account … and I guess he spotted it. So he private messaged me and he said ‘I’m really profiting from your account'” and then quickly deleted that message, said Clish. “There’s a real malice with this particular hack.”

He adds that others have informed him that they have called the hacker out when he messages them, who then turns abusive and blocks them.

Clish says he contacted Instagram several times to verify his identity and regain control of his account, to no avail.

“When I did get responses back, its very mechanized, you don’t feel like it’s a human responding, it’s more like an AI bot with very limited ways to address what your concerns are,” he said.

Instagram verified Clish’s identity twice and sent him links to recover his account, but Clish says they did not work. After much back and forth, he says they stopped responding.

He also filed a police report but says it did not get him very far.

After CityNews reached out to Instagram regarding Clish’s conundrum, he was finally able to regain control of his account. He is now trying to mitigate the damage that was done, including the loss of followers and the trust of his customers.

“I obviously am thankful for your efforts, but I am really disappointed — I want to use another word — that that’s what it takes. How do all of the other businesses … in my circumstance get their accounts back? We can’t all reach out to a media figure,” he said.

In a statement to CityNews, Instagram’s parent company Meta reiterated their previous comments regarding hacking and scam activities on their platform.

“Financial scammers use different tactics across the internet to mislead people and we pay close attention to these tactics so we can respond and protect our community.  We have sophisticated measures in place to stop bad actors in their tracks before they gain access to accounts, as well as measures to help people recover their accounts. We know we can do more here, and we’re working hard in both of these areas to stop bad actors before they cause harm, and to keep our community safe,” they said.

However, after his experience, Clish says he’s learned a tough lesson and will be working towards creating a web presence on other platforms or blogs apart from Instagram to further his business.

“I would caution other businesses to be very careful with it and continue to use other types of platforms because this one is becoming a liability,” he said.