Warning: Bluesky Account Scammer
Posted on August 4, 2025 by Aywren
This past weekend, I had a brush with a scammer on Bluesky who had compromised a mutual’s account. I’m writing the details up here as a cautionary tale. The scammer did not get what they wanted out of me (my Bsky account), but that’s only because I’ve been hacked in the past and I’m super suspicious of everything.
Turns out, after I drafted this post, I’ve been seeing many other people reporting something similar. So, this is going around, and it’s good to be aware!
Here’s What Happened
I’ve known this mutual for 15+ some years, maybe longer. We’ve been mutuals on different platforms over the years, and interact casually with each other’s content. But we haven’t had a conversation in quite a while, so it’s rare that they contact me directly.
When out of the blue, this account private messages me using Bsky’s chat feature (which I had set to mutuals only, thinking that was pretty safe), I wasn’t sure what to think. Doubly so when they used a sad/anxious face emoji on the end of the first line, and did not leave more than just a “hey”. It didn’t seem like something my mutual would do – if they were to approach me about something, I feel they’d have been much more casual-chatty with me, even if something was up.
I gave it some time before I responded, waiting to see if they’d follow up with something else. When they didn’t, I respond with a friendly-neutral stance. After all, while I felt this was odd, I didn’t know if this was my mutual texting me or not.
When they responded, telling me someone was imitating me on Bsky, and it was causing confusion, my suspicion levels were rising. I did a quick search around Bsky for my user name and any other keywords that I heavily associated with myself and found nothing.
It’s not like I’m a big-name person on Bsky with thousands of followers. There’s no reason for someone to imitate my account, and no one else had let me know there was an issue or “confusion” about my identity there. I have plenty of active pals on Bsky that I’d think would have alerted me if that was the case.
I responded neutrally again, continuing the conversation because I was curious where it was going to lead. But I also took the above screenshot and sent it to Syn because I was like… “This is pretty weird. I have a bad feeling about this.”
She agreed.
I didn’t hear anything until the next day when the chat response was something like:
Well, I can’t send you a link (which I wouldn’t have clicked anyhow if they did) or a user profile as proof. Because every time I search for it, your account comes up. My Discord name is XXXX. Let’s chat there and I can tell you all about it.
That was an insta hard-no.
I don’t give out my Discord to anyone unless they are a close friend or family member, or I know for sure who the person is. And this had all kinds of red flags about it. I’m sad I didn’t take a screenshot of this message because I can’t access the chat anymore, but if ANYONE randomly asks to Discord chat and you have suspicions, do NOT oblige.
I don’t know what happens when you do Discord with them. I just know that my mutual, who had their account stolen, said that the scammer did the same to them, asking to meet on Discord. And that’s how they ended up losing their account.
Not only that, but this mutual would have known how to seek me out on Discord if they really needed to. I knew that, so the request to friend up on Discord was very, very sus to me.
I politely told the scammer that I don’t give out my Discord to folks, and that the conversation would need to stay there on Bsky.
They went on to explain that they’d been confused by this Bsky impostor, had accidentally reported my account to Bsky, and even had an email from Bsky about the report. They wanted to chat with me so that together we could clear it up.
I requested pics of the “proof” they had, and of the email, which I knew they couldn’t send through Bsky chat. I said that I would take the pics and do my own investigation, and take it to Bsky if I needed.
They responded that they couldn’t send pics through Bsky chat and prompted me to try it in return.
I admitted, no, I guess you can’t send pics in Bsky chat. But that’s okay. We’re also mutuals on Facebook, right? You can just send it to me there!
At this point, I knew I’d get the answer whether this was truly my mutual on the other end or not. If they couldn’t send me a pic or interact with me on Facebook, then something was wrong.
That’s when I actually DID go to my mutual’s Facebook, mostly with the intent to message them and clear all this up. Sure enough, they’d posted a warning that their Bsky account had been stolen and someone was now impersonating them. They’d already reported the account stolen to Bsky, and had picture proof on their Facebook post of that report.
That’s all I needed.
I returned to the Bsky chat where I’d heard nothing back from the scammer. I then triumphantly told them: “Oh wait. Looking at your Facebook, it appears this account has been compromised, which is what I suspected.”
That resulted in an INSTANT BLOCK from their end. (LOL)
I quickly reported the conversation to Bsky to help reinforce my mutual’s own report. But not long after, I saw that the account was deleted – I’m not sure if that’s Bsky taking action or if the scammer did it out of spite. Due to this, I no longer have access to the chat transcript, or I’d be sharing it all here so you could see the exact wording.
I felt bad about that, and left some notes on my mutual’s post on Facebook explaining what happened. They say they aren’t too worried about the loss of the account, thankfully, but was more worried about the scammer reaching out to me. To which I said – don’t blame yourself, this is the doing of internet predators, and I know it feels TERRIBLE to lose an account to something like this.
Syn says that the “I accidentally reported your account, let’s get together to sort this out” thing is something commonly used by scammers. I’d never heard of it before, but now I have.
And now you have, too.
Safety Breakdown
Here’s the safety breakdown:
- Be wary of chat, even from mutuals. I ended up turning my Bsky chat off completely after this.
- Never meet in Discord if you have suspicions. Really think it through first – why does this person need to meet you in Discord in particular? Would they have other avenues of sending you information?
- Never click “proof” links. They could be phishing links.
- Ask for picture proof if you need it, but know this can be faked, too.
- If this is coming from a mutual, contact them on another platform, if possible, to confirm their identity.
- While I did lead on the conversation out of my own curiosity, the best thing to do is just stop chatting. Again, keep your chat channels secure, even turn it off if you need to.
- If you feel sure that the account is compromised, report it.
- Don’t fall for the “I accidentally reported your account, let’s meet to work it out” scam.
If you have any other tips or stories to share about similar situations, I’d love to hear them in the comments. Please stay safe!