Yesterday, a friend of mine found out that someone had created fake social media accounts using photos of her family which includes photos of her and her husband and her kids. This person seems to be trying to create her own identity based on the photos she has downloaded from my friends blog and public social media accounts. Though this is scary when you find out it has happened to you, social media fraud actually happens all of the time.
The internet is full of sociopaths. Because you can hide behind computers and smartphones, you can create whatever identity you want. All you need is photos. You can get photos from anywhere, because we all share them publicly. Even though all of the major social media websites have privacy settings which allow you protect who can view your content and who can not, people still seem to leave it wide open.
The problem with social media is that we want everybody to see what we are up to. If we block too many people, nobody will see us. Because we want to be seen or heard, we leave things wide open, or close to it.
Here are some things to think about and do when someone is impersonating as you online:
1. This happens to many people who post stuff online. People with nothing but time on their hands do stuff like this to be able to craft a life they wish they had. This means you are doing something right because you apparently are reflecting a life that people would want to mirror. It is what happens when you post a lot of content including photos, names and other information to the “open web.”
The only way to avoid this would be to stop posting your content in the public arena. If you blog, it’s highly likely that your content is open to the public. Be prepared to be scrutinized by the internet which includes the full gamut of people in our world.
2. When you come across profiles or sites that appear to be impersonating as you, you should flag everything you come across and report it to the websites that it is posted on. This most frequently happens on social media sites so this is actually easy. Just flag everything and eventually the fake accounts will be closed. Get your real friends to flag the photos and profiles as well. The more reporting that happens the better. Make sure you encourage your friends not to bully the person. You can to remain the victim here. You or your friends could end up causing more of a scene then the one impersonating you did.
For the time being, I would also suggest that you go private with all of your social media until the situation is cleared up. You can also harness the power of your social network of friends to go after this person. You can tag, reply, comment and do all sorts of things with that person’s username to make it hard for them to exist using it without a trail of content following these accounts that describes them as fake.
3. Are you in imminent danger or this impersonator? Most likely not. It is probably some bored person who wishes they had what you have. The “hot chicks” of the internet who post selfies all day long have this issue quite often. People create fake personas using their photos so they could be looked up to by others. It’s like the movie, “Can’t buy me love,” but without the payment and the fake relationship. Thousands of people deal with this each day. All you can do is flag the accounts and contact the social media sites using the appropriate methods outlined in their Terms of Service. As long as people continue to crave attention and affection from others, this will continue to be a problem for those who choose to post publicly about themselves and their life.
It’s time consuming and annoying, but it’s what happens when you post publicly to the web. To prevent this, you could simply post privately and only allow your friends to see it but then you would lose the ability to help people you don’t know with your words. There is a trade off.
Alternatively, you could choose to post your text content publically and share your photos privately. Facebook and Google+ allow you to decide who sees your content on a post by post basis. Twitter and Instagram take an all or nothing approach by giving you one option to make your content private. People can either see your content if you approve them, or they are blocked from seeing your content in it’s entirety.
4. You can also contact the person at the profiles and let them know that a police report has been filed and they are looking into tracking the IP address that has been posting this content. That should be enough to scare them into deleting the accounts themselves. Actually contacting the authorities might not do anything at all unless there was an imminent threat. Sure this is lying to them, but it could scare them enough to close the account and move on to the next person. Chances are that this is not the first time they have done this. You would be surprised how many false identities people have gone through.
Post to your blog and other “public” places online that you have filed a report and an investigation is going into tracking the following accounts, list usernames and even link to the accounts, and then mention that they will be running an IP Tracer on the uploaded content. Social networks know which IP address was used to post content and Internet Service Providers (ISP) know which customer of theirs was actually using that IP. Though it is near impossible to actually do an IP Trace without the appropriate access and warrants and what have you, it could be enough to scare the impersonator.
Look through the friends or followers that these fake accounts have. See if there are any weird trends that look like there might be other fake accounts using photos and posts from other people. Look at the friends of those accounts and see if there are any “normal” looking profiles who seem to be friends of all of these people. Perhaps you can pinpoint who is behind all of this. However, this will be hard to do and may even be a waste of your time.
I have had run-ins with impersonation online. My company DailyAppShow.Com was copied to the point where all text content, photos and videos were copied over to a new website. I had clients contacting me asking if we make a copy of our website. I have been blogging and posting content online since 1995 and I have had to flag some accounts here and there. It comes with being part of the internet.
Lastly: Don’t lose any sleep over this. Sure it may be hard to clean up but it’s not the end of the world. I highly doubt you or anyone included in this impersonation are at any risk. The internet is full of people with antisocial personality disorders.
People will also jump to conclusions because they most likely have not heard of this happening to someone they know before. I saw someone post on my friends Facebook page that it is most likely a child predator and the post made it sound like my friend should lock up her children and prepare for the Lifetime channel to do a movie about what is happening to her family. This is not the case. Though you should take extra precaution just in case, it is most likely just someone online trying to be someone they are not. Allowing this impersonator to upset you is allowing them to win. They are probably not doing this to hurt you directly, they just want to be someone they are not. Like I said, this happens all day every day on the internet.
Here are some links to help you with reporting impersonation violations:
- Twitter Impersonation Policy Violations –Â https://support.twitter.com/groups/56-policies-violations/topics/236-twitter-rules-policies/articles/18366-impersonation-policy
- Facebook Image Privacy Violations –Â https://www.facebook.com/help/428478523862899/
- Instagram Report an Impersonation Account –Â http://help.instagram.com/contact/636276399721841
Have you had an experience with having some form of your identity impersonated online?
Last night I had a new follower on my instagram . I click on her pick and am frantic to find out why the heckl my pictures on a profile I did not make. Stupidly my first instinct was to comment and ask wtf they were doing with my pictures. I was blocked before I could do anything. I have no idea the username. I have been up most of the night trying to figure it out. It just makes me so nervous that someone is out there posting asme. And I have no idea what they are saying, they could be portraying me as something I’m completely not (for lack of better words a slut) and there is nothing I can do.
I’m Joy Phoenix, from New Zealand living in the US, a public figure on Facebook.
Some creepy CREEPY man has created a yahoo account with my name in it joy——[email protected], he watches me on FB, targets my friends, and sends them emails from here, impersonating my writing style, getting them to all manner of extremely inappropriate things.
And they DO God help them. They simply assume it’s me asking and because they trust me, they go ahead and send him pictures and talk about intimate things!
I DONT EVEN HAVE A YAHOO ACCOUNT. What can I do? I write about it on FB, will blog about it on my site, it quietened him down for a couple of months, then off he goes again, getting worse each time.
Please, can you advise me.
Hi Joy, the only thing I would suggest is to file a report with your local authorities and put something up on your Facebook and blog about it. If you know his name, make sure to include that in the report and anything that you know of that links to him such as his social media profiles. Hopefully that will shake him enough.
I have a problem that’s not being solved by instagram. My 14 year old daughter has someone on instagram who created a fake account in my daughters name. They’re using her photos and going onto other pages and making racial slurs pretending to be my daughter. They gave my daughters real instagram account on their page also saying to visit their other account. They are also giving my daughters personal info out like where she goes to school ect…. they’re defaming her character and putting her in potential danger by giving out personal onfo. I immediately reported this to instagram. In return instagram disabled my account instead of my daughters impersonators. I and my daughter emailed them and told them they made a mistake and deleted my account instead. I never got any word back from instagram. My daughter is very upset, I’m livid and this imposter posing as my daughter is still on instagram making racial slurs and leaving racial comments in my daughter’s name and using my daughter’s picture as the profile of this fake account. I plan to call the police in hope that something be done about this since instagram will not delete the account. We even both reported it again and instagram is ignoring us
I can’t even get any help from Twitter this person is using my old account because I was stupid enough to give them my login over a lame excuse they gave me. She’s threatening with nudes I have to leak them. I’m a minor also. I can’t remember the original email I set up with my account I even sent in my ID to Twitter and they still wouldn’t help me.
I have an anxiety disorder and am frequently stressed and worried. I am a frequent gamer and befriended a guy at one point. We talked, I told him some basic info (real first name and how many dogs I have and stuff). We fell out quickly and the guy pretty much dox’d me, hacked my Skype, Google Account and ROBLOX account and pretended to be me for a few months or so… He didn’t do much but leaked info and acted like an idiot in my name on all these accounts as well as a sociopathic troll and he semi forced me toplay along as he threatened to release my personal info if I didn’t. Thank God I managed to grab the account’s back and I soon learned he was part of an online community which I dipped in and instantly hated. I left my Skype and what not and eventually got my roblox back in November of this year. I cleared the air with most the people but the detail and how he copied my personality (save the begging). He forced me to play with weird strangers and add them on another gaming platform.. It was just scary and gives me anxiety to this day… The Microsoft also got hacked again as it is suspended and I don’t ever use the google account…
I have someone who has practically ruined my career.
He has taken away the peace of my family and going to the cops did not help…
He has uploaded my pictures with “sexual” content.
I have no idea how to track him.
Any help would be appreciated.
He had currently impacted the lives of many
I found out yesterday I have someone texting random men that I am friends with on Facebook from college pretending to be me. They are sending silly pictures of me from when I was 18/19 years old — before we knew of the downsides of social media — and then they’re also sending nudes (head down) not of me, but pretending to be me. At other times (3 times in the past 3 years) they have texted me pretending to be some of these men and trying to just catch up. It’s so strange. It baffles me that someone is interested in investing time and energy into this. I think it’s true that they’re people who feel rejected in life or from society, and don’t have a lot of love in their lives. I hope my situation doesn’t escalate.
I am sorry to hear these horror stories. If you need help I would recommend hiring a private detective or someone who can track IP addresses? Also, please go talk to a therapist to get some emotional support! T
hank you for this article. It has been the most down to earth and calming article I’ve read on this issue. Honestly I thought there would be more information on the internet than there is regarding this issue considering how common it is.
Unfortunately, add me to the list. Long story short: I met a guy from London in a chat room back in July. Fast forward to now, he has admitted to paying for all of my information and the information of my family. He claims he has recordings of our conversations, he said he is going to make fake accounts of me and as of today, he is still e-mailing and harassing me. He is smarter than law enforcement, because they refuse to do anything. The only thing I have on my side is his name, age, where he works, and a general location of where he lives. But all of this means nothing to him, as he is a psychopath. He has been arrested in the States before (he bragged about it), but was let go because his accuser (female) didn’t have enough for them to hold him on. He is planning to come back to the states very soon and he is well aware of where I live. I have no idea what to do, because this guy is a lunatic.
ive been impersonated on twitter for 3 years and nothing is being done they have stolen my identity my work information and my small buisness i work for including the name of my weather buisness and also they have beeen posting my pictures and work ethic as welll who do i contact and i wont report this this to twitter since they are being rude and disrespectful in this matter
Thanks for this article. Can you suggest something in regard to websites? I let go of a domain name after my site got hacked beyond repair and lost all of my content (or so I thought!). Now the domain has been acquired by someone else and is using my content, logo and name! Some of the pages have nothing to do with my content. He/she is advertising drugs and medications. How can I get my content and especially my name removed for good from this site? There is no contact information or email on it, and the WHOIS is private. Please advise!
I Encountered this guy he’s impersonating actually is in the military Brandon Burleson he wants you to think he’s in the military he was asking me for my banking info I didn’t give it to him he was asking me lots of personal questions making me feel very uncomfortable. I was talking to him on Hangouts and on there he was asking for my banking info I didn’t give it to him He was asking me personal questions making me feel very uncomfortable His sister told me to talk to him kalfman Steve talk to her brother said he’s in the military but he is not he’s impersonating somebody in the military. Cuz I was telling him about this lady who is a scam artist and he said his brother would be able to help me deal with her.