Wednesday 29 July 2020

Christmas in July

One of the ways to check whether an account is genuine or not is to take note of the pictures being posted, their content and the date they have been uploaded.  Today I am going to show you a fake account that I was sent on Instagram a couple of days ago.

OK.   Well, I don't know who the real guy is here sadly but there are other clues that this is a fake account.

He has added 4 posts only, one of which is one of those yucky schmaltzy flowers ones - I mean what guy would really post something like this?  The genuine male accounts I follow just don't add posts like this.

The numbers of followers and following make me suspect fake - only 16 followers and he's following 161, many of which are middle-aged and older women.

His name - Williams Andy.  It's the wrong way round and I am sure should he have messaged me he would have said his Christian name is Williams.  Who has ever heard of Andy as a surname/family name?

I am going to add another screenshot here which is the biggest clue that this is a fake account operated by a scammer.










Take a good look at the photo and what do you see?  The man wearing a Santa Claus hat in front of a Christmas tree.  The photo says it was added 4 hours ago - when you hear that I took the screenshot at 8.03pm on 26 July and I am based in the UK you can work out that this account was added to Instagram at approximately 4pm on Sunday 26 July (UK time).  So it is 5 months until Christmas this year and 7 months since Christmas 2019 - why on earth would anyone add this now unless it had a comment explaining a reason behind posting it.  It doesn't.  The comment showing is from a follower.

I think this is the biggest red flag that this account is fake.  No real person tends to add Christmas images onto a new Instagram account created in July.  A scammer would, however.  They think that adding a Christmas shot makes it seem like the account has been around longer than it has which, in turn, makes it seem more genuine.  But it doesn't.  It's a big red flag for me and I hope that it will be for you too.

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