“These young people share this common thought that school doesn’t work,” Stephen T. Johnson, an entrepreneur and a founder of Flipmass, a monetization platform for social publishers, said of followers of the account.

He added that the fact that many faux entrepreneurs are young themselves just makes their sales pitch more effective.

“If me and my friends are following someone who looks like us, but has nicer things than us and says, ‘I’m going to teach you to be like me,’” Mr. Johnson said, teenagers can’t help but take them up on the opportunity. “If you’re all talking about him, like, ‘Wow, did you see the new car he bought? Did you see he’s going to teach only 10 people how to do this, too? We have to be those 10 people.’”

Victims pay for bogus entrepreneurs’ courses and mentorship programs, or to be added to an Instagram account’s “close friends” stories circle — a private group that receives exclusive content.

Mr. Wong said that often these scammers don’t even teach their own classes. They create a script or slide show and hand it off to subcontractors. “It’s like claiming you’re an expert yoga instructor, selling your yoga classes, then getting your sister-in-law who has no yoga experience to teach,” Mr. Wong said.