‘Tinder Swindler’ Simon Leviev is finally getting a taste of his own medicine. Sources familiar with the situation say that the notorious fraudster fell for a scam after attempting to get his social media accounts verified. The bandits made off with $7,000 and were able to scrub their accounts before Simon realized he had been duped.
As per TMZ, Simon was contacted last week by an unknown woman who ran a verified account. The woman offered to help the fraudster and his girlfriend Kate Konlin get verified on Instagram. She claimed that her boyfriend worked at Meta, who owns Instagram, could help make it happen.
Simon was eager to get verified and responded to her message, before ultimately getting in contact with the woman’s boyfriend who went through great lengths to make the scam appear legitimate.
Allegedly, the scammer carefully crafted an image of authenticity. He called Simon on FaceTime where he appeared to be in a busy office, with employees scurrying about behind him. Once he had convinced Simon, he claimed that there was the only way for the Tinder Swindler to receive the blue checkmark of verification and have all the fake accounts under his name removed.
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Simon would have to pay nearly $7,000 to make it happen. And the notorious fraudster found himself in the same position as all of the women he had scammed in the past, he was left high and dry and out a big chunk of change.
Simon, who recently hired a manager to cash in on his unlikely fame, found the deal to be quite suspicious. He contacted a member of the actual Meta team, who revealed to him that they don’t charge for verifications, and it became clear that a swindle had taken place.
To make matters worse, the woman who had contacted Simon and her phony Meta employee partner vanished immediately after he sent the money, scrubbing their social media accounts to make a clean break and get away with the caper.
Simon did eventually get his account verified on Instagram on Tuesday after his manager reached out to Meta.
Source: TMZ, New York Post
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