What if someone is pretending to be me?

Report the account to @NoToScam, the team that handles impersonation and scam reports. Send the impersonator's username or profile link and screenshots of what they sent to people. Reports with evidence are acted on considerably faster than reports without.

Report it from inside the app too

1. Open the fake profile, channel or group.
2. Tap the name at the top to open the profile, then the menu button in the corner.
3. Choose Report, then Fake account or Scam.
4. Add a short description naming who is being impersonated.

How impersonation usually works

• A near-miss username. An extra underscore, a swapped letter, a digit standing in for a character. Readers rarely check character by character.
• A copied display name and photo. The display name is free text and can be set to anything, so it is never proof of identity on its own.
• A cloned channel. The same name, the same avatar, sometimes reposted content, with payment details quietly changed.
• A private approach. Contacting your members or customers individually so no one else sees the message and compares notes.

How to make yourself harder to impersonate

Publish your real username in the places people already trust, such as your website, your channel description and your email signature, and tell your audience that this is the only account you use. If you run a channel or a business presence, say plainly and regularly that you never ask for payment in direct messages. The single most effective protection is that your audience knows in advance what you will never do, so an impersonator has nothing convincing left to try.