CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Crystal Jennings says she’s a celebrity makeup artist and has worked with stars, including American Idol’s Fantasia.
Jennings told Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke she got an Instagram message she thought was from a friend about a Bitcoin investment opportunity and that she invested about $420.
[ ALSO READ: Action 9 warns job scams on the rise during pandemic ]
Turns out, it wasn’t that friend. It was a scammer, who somehow managed to lock her out of her own Instagram account. “I had over 6,000 followers and it took me about two to three years to build [that] and most of them are my clients,” she said. “I’m basically starting all over.”
Even worse, she says the scammer used her account to con others and that there was nothing she could do about it. “They hit up all my followers,” she told Stoogenke.
She says she reported the scam to Instagram.
Jennings said this just added to a rough year for her. She says her 20-year-old son was murdered in St. Louis in March. “With everything that I’m going through, from the loss of my son, from the loss of my business, it has been an emotional roller coaster for me,” she told Stoogenke.
Jennings wants people to know not to trust her old account: AboutFaceMakeup1. She has a new account: AboutFaceMakeup_1.
[ ALSO READ: Burke County grandmother says she paid scammers $8,200 ]
If you use Instagram, be suspicious:
- Any time someone asks you for money or personal information.
- If that person wants you to move your conversation off Instagram to email or text.
- If the messages have a lot of grammatical mistakes.
And don’t just watch out for investment scams. Beware of romance scams, lottery scams, grant scams, and job scams. Click here for tips from Instagram on how to void scams.
(WATCH BELOW: Action 9: Woman loses $2500 due to Cash App scam)
This browser does not support the video element.