Can a scammer ever truly be scammed? Hilariously, yes! And very easily too. As if the Tinder Swindler’s recent legal troubles aren’t enough, he’s now been bilked to the tune of $6,000. Pennies compared to what he got from his victims, but still comeuppance.
Appropriately, this happened on another social media app: Instagram. Desperate to capitalize on his newfound notoriety, Simon fell for it when a random woman with a verified Instagram account reached out and offered to help him and his girlfriend get their accounts verified. She said her boyfriend worked at Meta, which was how they could supposedly help Simon get that elusive blue check, and got the money off him within days.
The tables have turned on ‘Tinder Swindler’ Simon Leviev … he was bamboozled himself in an Instagram scam.
Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ … Simon was hit up last Thursday by a verified female on Instagram. She claimed she’d help Simon and GF Kate Konlin get verified on the app through her BF — saying he worked at Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s tech company that owns IG.
The alleged swindlers went to great lengths to pull this off … Simon Facetimed the BF, who was in a busy office — appearing like he was at Meta, with employees walking around behind him.
The fake “Metamate” said the only way he could give him the blue check on his profile — as well as delete the fake accounts under his name — would be to offer up a big chunk of change … $6,664. The payments were sent via PayPal through 2 separate transactions — one for him and one for his GF.
Shortly after, Simon’s manager found the deal suspicious and reached out to an actual team member at Meta, who told them they don’t charge for verifications. Before anyone could call out the swindlers, they completely scrubbed themselves from the Internet — including removal of their IG accounts … letting the swindlers walk away with the cash…
Simon did get verified on Instagram Tuesday afternoon — by legit means, of course — after his manager reached out to Meta to get it done.
So what should we call them? The Ignoble Instagrammers? Funny that Simon didn’t even do the bare minimum of research on how to get verified and it was his manager that flagged it. It’s like he used all his energy on conning those women and now he’s done and ready to coast in infamy. It’s so telling that he and his manager still prioritized getting him verified as this was happening.
For someone who’s pulled such elaborate cons himself, Simon should be completely embarrassed that he was so easily scammed by these likely rookies. A DM and FaceTime from an office was seriously all it took? That’s barely an afternoon of effort on their part! Some light work to pick up a little bit of cash and disappear. Hopefully he’ll continue to face consequences, no matter how small.
Note by Celebitchy: I could not find this alleged Instagram account from Simon that’s “verified.” TMZ didn’t link it and the account he was previously using does not have a blue check. I suspect that Simon and his manager are lying to TMZ and that they only applied for verification and are still waiting to hear back.
can we stop paying attention to this asshole?
This! By writing and talking about him we’re giving him relevance he doesn’t deserve.
Hmmm… Isn’t it Twitter that has blue checkmarks, not instagram?
No, instagram has them too.
LOLOLOLOLOL! I hope he’s dying from embarrassment.
Hahahahahahaha!
IF this is legit and not just him scamming us all to get himself more airtime.
I saw a spoof of him and Anna if they dated. LMAO !
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CaqOBxQFINM/?utm_medium=copy_link
🤣🤣🤣
hahah fantastic!
Oh, that was good! Thanks for the link!
This is poetic justice and I hope he gets more of this treatment. Instagram should never verify him.
This should be an embarrassment for Meta as well that they’re so disorganized/badly run/opaque that these scams work. And it unfortunately absolutely does help to know someone at Meta to get things done: I work in social media for a performing arts organization that used social to keep in touch with patrons during the pandemic. Video posts kept getting autoremoved because the bot (incorrectly) IDed the music as being a recording under copyright, and ONLY when a colleague called in a favor from a friend who worked there was it magically solved.
But “Simon Leviev” isn’t even his real name, it’s one of his aliases. How can he get “verified” using a fake name that the real Leviev family is suing him for using? I’m sure confused.
Right? Which is why I don’t think he will be verified any time soon. I highly doubt Instagram/Meta/Internet Overlords want to be dragged into that legal drama by ‘legitimizing’ him.
No, it’s actually his real name, he had it legally changed at some point.
I’m just here to say how much I ABHOR the term ‘female’ in that TMZ article. Female what??! Female caterpillar? A female rhinoceros?! A WOMAN. How hard is that to type? It’s actually less letters. Ok, rant over.
I agree. I just googled to doublecheck–because I’ve always believed ‘female’ to be an adjective not a noun, but nope, apparently it’s been used as a noun as early as the 1300s. Still, to my ears, it’s an adjective.
There’s a plot line about this in ER. When Dr Corday returns to London and continues using male and female as nouns her British colleagues remind her that’s she’s not in America any more and in Britain those are adjectives.
I watched the first episode. I cannot believe the time and energy he put into what he did. It exhausted me just trying to comprehend the lengths he went to with what he did.
I guess, the old saying is true: If it seems too good to be true – it is.
I was expecting some truly blatant scam. But no by the time he’s flying these women on private jets and staying in five star hotels, it’s a lot more plausible that one would buy his story.
I whole heartedly get how the women believed and trust him. For me, I could not wrap my head around the lengths he took to forge such a fairytale. My heart goes out to these women, to trust and be betrayed and then have to pay for it in pain and money must be shattering.
Yeah, it was very elaborate but instead of working an actual job, scamming is his full-time job. And he brings his work home with him. It’s really a pretty sad existence. He had to invent a persona and he can only draw others in by dazzling them with riches and experiences he himself can’t afford. Or by inventing sob stories to garner sympathy. If you peel back all the layers, he’s not even a person with an identity. His own mother doesn’t want anything to do with him.
It was exhausting just thinking of it, much less trying to live it. How the hell did he relax and enjoy the thousands he blew through in one night. I would rather eat a hamburger than filet if I have to worry about someone putting me in jail if I eat the filet.
Too bad it was only 6K.
HAHAHAAHAH SUCKERRRRR
This guy need to be dropped off on a deserted island and forced to survive on his own with no phone to call people demanding that they go out of their way to help him. No texting, no pampering, no designer clothes, just “naked and afraid.” Screw him.
There’s a tiktok campaign to bully him off the platform. I think he’s hoping for brand deals and such but who is actually going to work with this guy? The same people partnering with the Paul brothers?