If you’ve got a short, catchy Instagram handle, it’s more than likely that you’re going to be the target of some kind of harassment.


As noted by the New York Times, there’s a market for snappy Instagram handles — meaning that if you can get your handles on simple handles like “cool” or “fart,” you’re likely in line for a big payday. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a black market of those who will steal accounts and flip them, or in some cases, extort the owners until they give in and give up the handle.


For example, one person with a short handle claimed that he was the victim of a SIM-swapping attack to get his handle — and when that didn’t work, the would-be thief began sending endless pizzas to his home at all hours of the day and night until he caved and forked over the handle.


Now, some are saying that these thieves aren’t outside actors; rather, the problem is with Meta itself.



A man named Chris Sullivan has the highly desired username “cs” — or I guess I should say, *had* that username. Now, he alleges that a Meta employee has stolen his account and “sold it to some rich kid for $14k.”


While he says he’s “working on it with Meta now,” the Instagram account is no longer within his ownership, and the new owner is allegedly running a Roblox scam. I love the modern internet!




Whether these new owners are the ones who allegedly orchestrated the trade with a Meta employee or they’re just someone who bought the username secondhand is difficult to say. However, I think it is fair to say that this shouldn’t be possible — if I want to flip my “ButtMuncher” username for thousands of dollars, that’s my God-given right.