Nova 100’s Belle Jackson has revealed how scammers took advantage of her unverified Instagram status.
Jackson, who is one-third of the Ben, Liam and Belle breakfast show in Melbourne, revealed that over the weekend, she was contacted by who she believed were Meta officials in regard to verifying her Instagram status.
Having been a member of the Melbourne breakfast team since their start at the end of last year, Jackson noted that she has been very to get her account verified like her co-hosts Ben Harvey and Liam Stapleton.
Jackson recalled: “So, I got a DM on Saturday morning from an Instagram account called Insta badge. And you guys know that I’m desperate to get verified. Gimme that blue tick. I want that blue tick. I want that blue tick so bad.
Stapleton explained: “Just a little bit of context. Ben and I’ve been doing this show together for almost a decade now. Belle was producing for many years. If this is your first time listening, she’s only on (air) this year. You’ve been in the public eye for not as long as a time.
And yes, a little flex, but Ben and I’ve got these little blue ticks. Normally, someone gets them for you. I don’t know how it works. But we did discover that in Belle’s first week on air here at Nova 100, she emailed Instagram and asked if she could have a blue tick.
Harvey jokingly quipped: “Which is gross. It’s lame, shameful. Belle stinks of desperation. Like when you meet her. If you meet Belle in real life. You go. She smells like she’s desperate for blue tick.”
Jackson continued: “I opened my DMs and there was this Insta badge message, and it said, Instagram Blue tick verification, Hello Instagram user, your account has been thoroughly reviewed by our support team, it has been deemed eligible to receive a blue checkmark on your account, request the link from the Instagram admin who contacted you to get a blue checkmark. So, I wrote back ‘thank you so much’”.
Harvey and Stapleton joked that Jackson probably called all her friends to celebrate as her fiancée celebrated with champagne.
Despite the celebrations, Jackson, also shared the screenshots of the account and the conversation, started to become suspicious as the scammers provided a less the sophisticated methods to verify her account.
Jackson shared: “I got the link and then they said copy and paste the link that we sent you into this chat. I copied and pasted it, but every time I tried to click the link, it would just take me to Facebook, to my Facebook. I was like that’s weird, but I posted it in there anyway.
“Then I got this notification that said, a device has logged into your Instagram. So I changed my password. I did all that frantically straightaway. Then I got suss and they messaged and said we were the ones who logged in next message. We’re just verifying all your details.
“Next message. We’ll send you a new link shortly to do it again. And then I said, okay, sorry, can I just confirm is this legitimate?
“And, they said of course!” Stapleton said.
“They wrote it’s 100% Legit, you don’t need to fear,” Jackson said. “I was like, okay. Then I said can I speak to you to confirm, and they said okay. So, I called them through the DM like through that calling feature and the guy picked up, and he’s like, hello. And I was like hi just wanted to confirm… He literally said I work at Meta.
“I was like, Okay, how long for and he’s like, a few years? We also run Facebook. I said, yes, no, everyone knows that. And I said, okay, I just want to confirm that this is legitimate. He said, you don’t need to fear. It’s fine. Like, yeah, I’m really fine without a blue tick.”
Luckily for Jackson, the dodgy voice on the other end of the call was enough of a warning sign for her to call off her campaign for a blue tick.
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Top image, left to right: Nova 100’s Ben Harvey, Belle Jackson and Liam Stapleton