If youre part of the alternative spiritual community, Im sure youve seen all the imposter account scams. Essentially, someone will clone an account of a high profile author, tarot reader, psychic, medium, witch, etc. They will mimic the bio and repost several of the same instagram photos. Once theyve established their profile they will then proceed to go through their targets follower list and begin following and messaging those people trying to offer them psychic readings, tarot readings, or magickal workings. Sometimes they will ask for payment first. Sometimes they will give a very poor cold reading and stop asking for payment before proceeding. (Cold readings are when you say a few flattering vague statements that anyone can relate to, posed as a psychic reading.) Once youve paid, they will block you.

When I got my first imposters it began occurring about once a couple months, then increased to monthly, then finally almost weekly. The only person Im aware of who has been targeted more than I am is author and podcaster Theresa Reed known as The Tarot Lady on instagram. Both of us have had this eternal headache on instagram and both of us have thought about just deleting our accounts in general. Both of us have tried to get our accounts verified, which quickly shows that Instagrams verification process is a scam. It claims to be there to help figures well known in their communities be verified as the real account and to help combat imposter accounts pretending to be them. Instagram has an obvious bias against authors in our spiritual genre regardless of how large our online following might be, how many books we write or sell, or how many public media mentions we receive (which is a criteria for verification.)

Without asking the legal questions of why is Instagram allowing this to happen? or if a class action lawsuit for identity theft and financial damages is possible, its clear that instagram doesnt care about the safety of both the person being impersonated, and more importantly those being scammed. Ive had several messages from folks telling me they have spent hundreds of dollars to accounts pretending to be me without receiving their readings. Its also frustrating since our community has this historical stigma (which still exists) about psychic readings as well as spiritual and magickal services being scams, and this only furthers it by using the names and images of people trying to engage in ethical and moral services. After continually taking every action possible, I realized I should write this quick guide to help keep us all a bit safer by talking about what to do about these accounts on instagram. Throughout Ive posted several (but not nearly all) of the accounts that have pretended to be my real instagram account.

If youre uncertain about whether or not an account is really the person theyre pretending to be, heres a list of things to consider:

Read the original:

How to Spot a Spiritual Impersonator Scam on Instagram (And What To Do) - Patheos