‘Gram Scam: Data Thieves Target Business Owners’ Information Through Instagram

Tese days, if your business doesn’t have accounts with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok, it might as well not exist. The ubiquity of these apps makes sharing news and information about your business easier, faster, and more efficient, which makes them prime marketing vectors. The less tech-savvy and the avowed Luddite alike are both likely to be greeted with shock that quickly morphs into pity when they’re asked, “What’s your **** handle?” and reply, “I don’t have one,” or even more damning, “Uh. Whuzzat?”

Unfortunately, the very omnipresence that makes these apps and other tools indispensable to business owners also makes them attractive to scammers, as reported in an urgent warning from the Better Business Bureau.

Scammers continue to explore new ways of rehashing and reheating old cons in the interest of getting their hands on other people’s money through deceptive means. One of the latest involves warning business owners they or their channels have been accused of copyright infringement and telling them they’ll have to fill out an online form to “appeal the decision.” In reality, the form asks for their Instagram login information and other account information.

You may be thinking, “So what? If they get into my Instagram, what’s the worst they can do?”

The answer, unfortunately, is “anything they want.” They can post content that is actively detrimental to your brand or repulsive to your personal beliefs. They can change your account parameters so you can’t access it…but THEY can. They can even delete your account or hold it hostage unless you give them even more, such as a request to “verify” your email login information. They could say, “If you want me to unlock your social media and not post embarrassing [whatever], you’ll pay me $XXXXX,” figuring you’re a business owner and you must be able to AFFORD $XXXXXX to get your social media back!

However, most scammers are more elegant than that. They pretend to be working for Instagram to “help resolve the issue.” Of course, the scam is that there IS no issue and never was, but they’re counting on you being so busy and distressed at the thought of losing a prime marketing channel that you inadvertently and ironically end up giving them exactly what they need to ensure you actually DO lose it.

The Better Business Bureau has some suggestions, which I’ll distill here in a few words and then add my own suggestions as an attorney who specializes in patent, trademark, copyright, and general intellectual property cases.

1.?????Calm down. Getting an email that you made a mistake is scary. Losing your cool isn’t going to help anything.

2.?????Get to know the site’s policies and procedures for dealing with infringement. Trust me, they’ve got them. You should know them and how complaints are managed.

3.?????Look at the email carefully. Does the address actually come from the site admin, or is it a copycat like “[email protected]?”

4.?????Check it out. If there’s really a problem, you’ll get an official notification from the site admins on your account.

5.?????Ask the admins about emails you receive that aren’t accompanied by official Instagram notifications on the app. Chances are they’ll ask you to send them the message you received so they can vet their content, and likely confirm the contents are bogus.

6.?????DO NOT FILL OUT ANYTHING UNTIL YOU TALK TO A VERIFIED SITE ADMIN! This includes forms, captchas, or anything else that doesn’t come directly from Instagram.

Okay. So we know what you can do if you get one of these from the standpoint of protecting your account.

Now I’m going to tell you how to prevent getting legitimate copyright complaints in the first place.

1.?????Don’t ever copy and paste content from the Internet (or anywhere else) without attribution unless you know for a fact it’s a) a quote that’s b) in the public domain. For example, if you copy and paste Shakespeare quotes, no one’s going to care. (Unless the quote is, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers…” That joke’s been done to death with lawyers, no pun intended.) If you post a clip from The Breakfast Club to showcase a new product, this is just begging for a copyright complaint.

2.?????If you copy and paste a quote from Star Wars accompanied by images, you could get in hot water if you haven’t properly licensed the images for your commercial use. Use a paid image service like Shutterstock or Getty Images to source images you absolutely must have or use in your social media. Be sure to read the sites’ terms and conditions for licensing information so you can make sure to purchase the right one for your needs.

3.?????If you don’t want to pay for images, use a site like Pixabay (this is where I source all my royalty-free images in these articles, just for your general fund of knowledge) or Pexels. Neither site requires attribution, but both ask nicely that you link back to the creators’ profiles and Pixabay gives you the option to tip creators for using their work if you’ve got a few extra bucks lying around to purchase some good karma. For background music, you could look at sites like Incompetech. For royalty-free video clips for commercial use, check out this list from Hootsuite.com.

4.?????If you can’t find an image that works for you or you really just don’t want to pay, link, attribute, tip, whatever (I’m not judging), then the final option is to either hire a graphic designer/photographer or do it yourself. The same applies to music, where you can hire a professional musician/composer or write the tune yourself, and video, where you can hire a videographer or…you get the idea.

5.?????You CAN use video, images, etc. that are related to your business and generated by customers/clients as long as you get their permission first. Boilerplate in your website’s terms and conditions specifying under what conditions, how, and where their IP might be used, and outlining the methods by which customers/clients can retract consent to use their content if necessary, can help you avoid problems later. YOU WILL NEED A QUALIFIED IP LAWYER FOR THIS STEP AND THE NEXT ONE TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE PROTECTED AS THOROUGHLY AS POSSIBLE FROM ALLEGATIONS OF MISUSE!

6.?????Generally, video/images/other IP created by your staff on company time and premises are considered to be company property and therefore fair game. However, it’s probably worth your while to make sure you include a section about this in your company’s employee handbook or on your staff-facing website, if applicable, so you have an extra layer of protection. Again, YOU WILL NEED A QUALIFIED IP LAWYER!

7.?????If you create, shoot, or film all your content yourself, you shouldn’t have much to worry about. Sure, someone can file a bogus takedown notice, but you can fight that as long as you can prove you’re the original author of the content under dispute with minimal difficulty. Unfortunately, nuisance complaints do sometimes happen, either stemming from a genuine human error or malicious intent, but that’s just part of the cost of doing business in our connected age and something you may have to brace yourself to have to deal with at some point.

If you’ve done everything above to insulate yourself from potential problems before they have a chance to start, you should be fairly secure.

But if you get a complaint, follow the steps in the first list before you do anything at all—and if you’re still in doubt, don’t do anything until you talk to a qualified IP attorney!

This is one situation where an ounce of prevention truly is worth a pound of cure.

?ABOUT JOHN RIZVI, ESQ.

John Rizvi is a Registered and Board Certified Patent Attorney, Adjunct Professor of Intellectual Property Law, best-selling author, and featured speaker on topics of interest to inventors and entrepreneurs (including TEDx).

His books include "Escaping the Gray" and "Think and Grow Rich for Inventors" and have won critical acclaim including an endorsement from Kevin Harrington, one of the original sharks on the hit TV show - Shark Tank, responsible for the successful launch of over 500 products resulting in more than $5 billion in sales worldwide. You can learn more about Professor Rizvi and his patent law practice at www.ThePatentProfessor.com

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