For the past week, emails from “Instagram” keep bugging me about someone seeking to reset my password — but the problem is that these messages aren’t actually from the social media giant at all. I cover scams for a living, but I was unsettled by how legitimate the emails appear. “We got a request to reset your Instagram password,” the email reads using a sender name that uses the same font, logos and language that I would receive with an official Instagram request. The sender then asks me to click a button to reset my password, or to click a link if I am not the person requesting a password reset. I didn’t click the unsolicited links, but I’m not alone with being confronted by this convincing ruse. There is now a Reddit thread on this topic with hundreds of comments sharing similar stories. This past weekend, Instagram released a statement, confirming that there was an “issue that let an external party request password reset emails for some people,” but denied that there had been a data breach. “Your Instagram accounts are secure,” the company said. Instagram’s advice if you got a password reset message is “to ignore those emails.” How To Check Your Instagram For Scams And Tips For Avoiding ‘Password Reset’ Schemes You should always be wary of unsolicited emails with urgent requests in general. In this case, no one appears to have had their data compromised by the Instagram emails, but it’s an important lesson to be wary of sudden, random emails. The urgent language of someone attempting to use your Instagram is what makes people stop thinking with their heads and click links they shouldn’t. The request “sounds urgent. So then you might just want to click anyways, to be like, ‘Oh, let me reset my password,’” said Amy Nofziger, the director of victim support for the AARP Fraud Watch Network. Unfortunately, this is exactly what scammers want you to do, often so that you reveal what your actual password is. “Then they can go in and pretend to be you on that platform ... and then they’ll send all your followers ... some ploy to say that you’re in trouble. You need money, and people think it’s coming from you,” Nofziger explained, saying this is a “very” common scammer tactic. What stopped me from getting fooled is what I recommend to anyone receiving a suspicious or alarming email: I went straight to the source. Here’s how. If you go on your Instagram app, go to your “Settings and Activity” page, then select Accounts Center. From there, tap “Password and security” and scroll down to “Security checks.” Tap “Recent emails” to see if Instagram has actually messaged you security and login emails in the past few days. Verifying requests on a vendor’s official website or app is the best way to check if a request is legitimate. “Whether it’s Instagram this week, it’s going to be someone [else] next,” Nofziger said. “So we always have to keep this top of mind on how to keep our accounts safe and how to not respond to these urgent emails or texts that we get unsolicited, because more often than not, they’re nothing but the start of a scam.” Related... One Type Of Link Proves A 'Royal Mail' Message Is A Scam, Says Expert Instagram's Now 'PG-13 Rated' For Teens – But What Does That Actually Mean? This 1 Word Can Protect Your Family From AI Scam Calls, FBI Says