UAE: Expat blocked from Instagram account; followers end up losing thousands of dirhams

An Abu Dhabi resident who fell for a bogus bitcoin investment offer had her Instagram account hacked and followers scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars.

Palestinian-Canadian first-aid trainer Tamim received a message on her Instagram account from the brother of an old friend who moved to London a few years ago.

“He talked me into investing in Bitcoin and said he would open an account for me and that I will be receiving a code on my phone which I had to share with him,” she recalled.

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“I shared the code with him in the Instagram chat box and was immediately locked out of my account. I called his sister and asked her what was going on, she told me her brother has been hacked as well.”

Luckily, Tamim was not swindled out of money in the process; however, several of her followers lost funds.

“The next day, I woke up to dozens of messages asking about my investment and how I managed to win a hundred thousand dirhams!”

The hackers were sending her followers images of golden coins and cash “flying in the air, with teasers like ‘Muna won this much, do you want to win as well?’”

For two weeks, Tamim tried to retrieve her account, while her hacker managed to trap three victims into paying over Dh10,000 each.

“One of my followers, a banker in Dubai, called my father complaining that she paid $30,000 after I messaged her on Instagram inviting her to invest with some agency so she can benefit like I did. She even demanded that we pay her back the money she lost," said Tamim.

Another victim called her from Saudi Arabia saying she borrowed her husband’s credit card without him knowing to pay $2,000 to the fraudsters.

“I started receiving calls from friends of friends that I haven’t seen in years. One woman who was unemployed at the time, said she argued with her older sister to lend her money so she can pay them around Dh30,000.

“She was unaware that she had been played and called me when I was training at the gym, asking for advice to win like I did. When I told her it was a hoax, she was shocked.”

Tamim finally found a way to close her account by paying an IT agent in Dubai Dh500 for the service.

“I messaged Instagram many times, but they did not answer. I wanted to wait till they could retrieve my account from the hacker so I can maintain my followers. But then I realised too much damage had been done and many people were losing their savings over my account, so I decided to terminate it in any possible way.”

After opening a new account, Tamim said she learnt her lesson and no longer accepts messages or follow requests from strangers.

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