Aotearoa / New Zealand

My 15 year old sister informed me last night that someone is pretending to be her on Instagram. The impersonator uses her photo as their profile picture and uploaded insta stories and photos of her with penises drawn on her face. This is probably the work of an teenager who dislikes her.

This person also contacts her friends through messaging service and harrasses them.

Instagram had declined her request to shut the account down on multiple occasions. I have tried to contact several grey hats online to locate and identify the impersonator but we're finding out that such service isn't cheap at all.

What should we do in this case? Thanks in advance.

EDIT: 30/9/23 Thank you for all of your advice and recommendations. We took screenshots and made a report on Netsafe's website They scheduled a phone call with her where she was able to explain what happened.

The bully account was finally taken down and Netsafe had 100% to do with it. They sent my sister a text message with updates on the case.

We think we know who the culprit is. They're a group of boys from a school in South Auckland. All of them covers their faces when posting on Instagram, we think we know why.

Anyways, I've made sure that my sister is keeping herself safe when online especially when it comes to posting photos.

Thanks again everyone.