Have you all heard of "Phishing"? It is an attempt by spammers (and other no goodniks) to trick or defraud people into giving out personal information such as their bank account, credit card numbers, passwords, and even their personal address.
I really enjoy my Instagram account and follow around 300 other folks who have Instagram accounts. I'd say the sites I follow are 85% quilting related, and 15% cooking, travel, and book review focused. I enjoy posting photos of my quilting projects and occasional family or food related pictures. My account is public and I have never had any issues.
Until yesterday, when another quilter, whose Instagram name also has a quilting related word in her title, mentioned that she had taken a look at her list of "followers" and discovered something kind of creepy. She noticed that she had quite a few followers who seemed to be attractive, successful middle aged men. When she looked at their Instagram accounts, they had very few posts, just photos of themselves looking handsome, happy and rich. And they followed *thousands* of other sites, but didn't have any followers of their own to speak of.
Creepy indeed. So of course I had to take a look and see who is following me. As I scanned down the list, I recognized the names of other Instagramers who are quilters, a few who weren't identified as quilters, but were clearly women, my relatives, and then, whoops----who is this Michael person? And Christopher7777? And DavidPhD? Sure enough, I clicked on their accounts and looked at their photos. All middle-aged, grey haired, very good looking, successful, well dressed, etc. One of them even had a stethoscope around his neck as he lounged against what seemed to be his desk. Another guy was a heavily decorated military man. They weren't all the same guy, but were so much alike they looked like brothers.
I must have had 10 of these middle aged dream boat mystery followers. Very dodgy if you ask me. You know the person behind the account isn't the good looking guy, but rather some ghoulish hacker from Russia or China or one of those countries that harbors cyber criminals.
So far, none of them have left me a comment asking me out on a date or have tried to sell me botox injections for cheap, but it makes you wonder, doesn't it? What possible interest or purpose could these strange men have in following my Instagram site? I blocked them right away of course, but it still gives me a major case of the creeps. Are these spammers targeting women who they hope are lonely aging quilters?
It is slightly funny, but I am telling you, maybe you want to check your Instagram followers and see if you have any of these same types of followers, who in my opinion, just can't be up to anything good.
Yep, same thing on my Instagram account. They stick out like a sore thumb in my list of followers because my account, like yours, is mostly quilting and family stuff. Weird-o's!
Posted by: TJS | July 20, 2017 at 05:20 AM
That is super creepy. Nasty. I hate to look. What the heck! Can you get rid of them? I am such an amateur at this stuff. SO sorry!
Mary
Posted by: Mary Kastner | July 20, 2017 at 05:58 AM
This happy to me recntly too, i couldnt believe they woukd be interested in my quikting. Agree it is creepy.
Posted by: Helen storer | July 20, 2017 at 05:59 AM
This is pretty common. Although I follow sports as well as quilting and cooking, so I seem to attract ultra-lovely young women. Ha! I block them and if they look really nefarious,I report them and IG will take a look at the account. You can set your account so you get notified when someone new follows you - then you can block them early on and not worry about who is lurking there. (Filed under things I never imagined I need to know.)
Posted by: Robby H. | July 20, 2017 at 06:06 AM
I kept my Instagram account private but almost every day, I have requests from ,most always, males, to access my account so it makes it rather easy to delete. Keeping my account private isn't ideal but I have some vacation/family photos along with quilting pics so I don't necessarily want the whole world to see. This is quite the world we live in and you cannot be too careful.
Just this last tax season, someone had filed a tax return in our name and SSN (information had been breached SOMEWHERE) with the IRS before ours was submitted looking for a huge return. Luckily the IRS was on to these tricks and they have instituted some safety measures so we were alerted to it before we even submitted our return. The aftermath is a headache though, as all passwords had to be changed, credit reports had to be checked, fraud alerts placed on everything! Be careful and guard your information!!
Posted by: Patty F | July 20, 2017 at 06:12 AM
I had the same thing happen but all of my followers were Arabic. Changed my password and deleted them. Has taken many months to clean up. They keep popping up and ask to be a follower.
Posted by: Julie | July 20, 2017 at 06:29 AM
How creepy! So sad that spammers can't put their energy into doing some good work and stop harassing people.
Posted by: Donna | July 20, 2017 at 07:22 AM
Okay that's really a bit creepy. I've checked my account too after reading the some post on IG and surely there are some accounts that makes me wonder why they actually follow me. When I find time this weekend I block them.
Posted by: Hildy | July 20, 2017 at 08:44 AM
Whenever someone new follows me I check their account. If they aren't sewists or nature I block them. ;p
Posted by: ina | July 20, 2017 at 10:21 AM
No social media for me, thanks. I have enough to keep my happily busy without that.
Hugs!
Posted by: Barbara Anne | July 20, 2017 at 01:38 PM
I don't have Instagram or Facebook but have heard horror stories about 'followers.' Quilt blogs are about the only thing I read regularly. You all be careful out there!
Posted by: Jan | July 20, 2017 at 03:39 PM
Same thing here! Sometimes I can figure out what led them to my account (like jigsaw puzzles, or cats) -- but there have been quite a few mystery men. I get notified when someone new follows me; guess I should o through the list and block the ones that seem creepy!
Posted by: Floribunda | July 20, 2017 at 05:39 PM
Strangely I have had many men trying to friend me on Facebook recently. All are rather good looking and appear to be Arabic or middle eastern with names I cannot begin to pronounce. Because they are strangers I delete them but perhaps I should block them? Such a different & often scary world we live in now.
Posted by: Penny | July 21, 2017 at 01:33 PM
I have those same followers:
(:
Posted by: Connie | July 25, 2017 at 09:56 AM
I have been thinking and reading the posts. My big question is who cares? What in the world could they possibly do? They would only be a threat if they interacted with us and we responded.Like a guy at a bar or club or gas station or where ever. I don't think we need to upset ourselves. Simply Block them if you feel threatened. Just like walking away from a stranger ..... don't look back
Posted by: Grammy | August 22, 2017 at 09:48 AM