Giveaway Scams on Instagram
Impostor accounts and hacked verified profiles run fake giveaways on Instagram promising gaming gear, gift cards, or cash prizes, collecting personal information and small fees from followers who believe they have won.
Part of: Twitch & Discord Giveaway Scams
Last reviewed: 1 June 2026
Instagram's visual format and influencer culture make giveaways a daily occurrence across millions of accounts. Gaming influencers, hardware brands, and gaming peripheral companies routinely host genuine prize draws, providing scammers with a convincing social script to imitate. A fake post with a professional graphic, a large follower count, and a comment section full of excited entries is almost indistinguishable from a legitimate campaign to a casual scroller.
Compromised or purchased verified accounts give scammers a particularly powerful tool — the blue tick signals authenticity to followers who might otherwise be suspicious. Once an account is hijacked and repurposed for a giveaway fraud, it can harvest thousands of personal details before the original owner regains access.
How this scam works on Instagram
A scam account posts a giveaway graphic offering gaming peripherals, console bundles, or cryptocurrency prizes. Followers are asked to like the post, follow the account, and tag friends to enter. A direct message then informs selected 'winners' that they must click a link and provide shipping details, verify their age with a credit card number, or pay a small 'customs handling fee' to receive the prize.
Stories are used to create urgency — a countdown timer and messages like 'only 3 winners left unclaimed' push followers to respond immediately without checking the account's legitimacy. Some scams use Instagram's link-in-bio to redirect followers to external sites that capture email addresses and phone numbers for further fraud campaigns.
Bot comment farms fill the post with entries from fake accounts to make the giveaway appear popular and active.
Common red flags
- Account following-to-follower ratio is unusual — large following but very few engaged comments
- Winner announcement arrives via DM from an account you did not directly follow or recognise
- Claiming a prize requires payment of any kind, including 'shipping', 'handling', or 'tax'
- Link in DM or bio leads to a site unrelated to the supposed brand running the giveaway
- Account profile photo and name are similar to a well-known gaming brand but the handle has minor differences
- Comment section populated with generic entries that do not reference the specific prize or brand
How to protect yourself
- Never pay any fee to claim a prize from a social media giveaway — legitimate giveaways never require payment
- Verify giveaways by checking the supposed sponsor's official website and other social channels for confirmation of the promotion
- Avoid providing your email, phone number, or shipping address to accounts you cannot verify as the genuine brand or creator
- Report impersonator accounts to Instagram before engaging with their posts to protect other followers
- Treat any DM claiming you have won a prize you did not deliberately enter as a scam
How to report it
- Tap the three dots on the post or profile and select 'Report' to flag it to Instagram as a scam or impersonation
- Use Instagram's dedicated impersonation report form if the account is falsely representing a public figure or brand
- Alert the genuine brand or creator whose identity is being used so they can post a public warning to their real followers
Frequently asked questions
Why do fake Instagram giveaway accounts ask me to tag friends?
Tagging requests serve two purposes for scammers: they grow the account's follower count organically and they extend the reach of the fraudulent post to new victims who see their friend's name in the comment. Your friends may then enter and also become targets.