Find Out if Someone is Impersonating You Online

Edward C. Baig,

AARP

En español

Published September 08, 2022

The spread of falsehoods in cyberspace is disturbing enough, but when your own social media account is being faked, it is especially damaging.

Worse, you may not know that an impostor is pretending to be you. But you’ll probably start hearing from friends and followers who weren’t fooled when they saw highly inappropriate messages or urgent pleas for money being made in your name. Sometimes they’ll see a request for a connection to the cloned account when they’re already friends with the original you.

Cloned social media accounts, different from other accounts that may have been hacked, can be scarily convincing, especially since your original account may remain intact and untouched. Indeed, a crook may hijack your profile picture, other images and biographical details from your original account.

“More people have their guard down or are more open to clicking on links, providing information or even providing money if the request comes from someone they know,” says Mona Terry, chief victims officer at the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) in San Diego. The nonprofit educates consumers on the risks of identity theft and offers free services to help victims recover.

What’s more, incidents of cloned accounts appear to be on the rise. Before 2021, less than 1 percent of cases brought to the attention of the center were related to social media account takeovers, Terry says. In 2021, the number of reported cases climbed 1,000 percent, and so far in 2022 it rose by another 157 percent.

Always be on the alert to prevent problems

Of course, you want to avoid getting hacked in the first place. Employ strong passwords you don’t repeat elsewhere, take advantage of multifactor authentication options in which sites send a one-time code to your smartphone for you to type in, and practice good security hygiene across all your accounts.

You can’t assume that social media companies will catch the bad guys before the crooks wreak havoc. The companies say they are trying.

“Through paired use of technology like artificial intelligence and teams of experts, we stop and remove the vast majority of policy-violating content that we detect before it ever goes live: 96 percent of detected fake accounts and 99.1 percent of detected spam and scams are caught by our automated defenses,” Oscar Rodriguez, LinkedIn’s senior director of product management, wrote on the professional networking site’s official blog.

If you find your account has been compromised or cloned, the first thing to do is to try to recover the account, Terry says. Thieves will typically try to change the recovery email and phone number for the account to their own so the account’s original owner can’t recover it.

Also alert your friends and contacts that the account has been infiltrated or copied. Report the issue as soon as possible to the social media company. Here are some of the ways to do that.

No account? You can out a Facebook impostor

1. Go to the fake profile if you have a Facebook account. If you can't find it, try searching for the name used on the profile or ask your friends if they can send you a link, Facebook says.

2. Click or tap the ellipsis ⋯ in the gray rounded box under the cover photo on the right and select Find support or report.

3. Select the problem in the Report box that comes up. Relevant here are Pretending to be someone, Fake account or Fake name.

4. Follow the on-screen instructions to file a report.

Facebook parent Meta will also let you report an impostor account even if you don’t have a Facebook account or lost access to your account.

1. Visit the Facebook Help Center on a computer or the Help Center in the Facebook app on Android or iOS.

2. Tap Report an impersonating page or account if you didn’t get to that page directly.

3. On the Report an Impostor Account form, click or tap either Someone is using my email address on their account, Someone created an account for my business or organization, or Someone created an account pretending to be me or a friend.

4. Click Yes or No when asked if you have a Facebook account.

5. Click Send.

Instagram allows only victims of fakers to report

You can report someone through the Instagram app on an iPhone or Android device. Instagram, which is also part of Meta, lets you report someone from their profile or from their feed.

If you find an account impersonating one of your friends, you’ll have to tell that friend to report it. Only the person who is the subject of the fake account can file a report, Instagram says.

From the profile:

1. Tap the username from its feed, story post, or from your chat with them. You can also tap the magnifying glass 🔍 and search the person’s username to go to their profile.

2. Tap the horizontal ellipsis ⋯ on your iPhone or the vertical ellipsis ⋮ on an Android phone in the top right of the profile | Report | Report Account.

3. Under the available options, tap It’s pretending to be someone else.

4. Under Who is this account pretending to be? tap Me | Submit report.

From the impostor’s feed:

1. Tap the horizontal ellipsis ⋯ on your iPhone or the vertical ellipsis ⋮ on an Android phone above the post.

2. Tap Report and follow the on-screen instructions.

On the web, go to Instagram’s Report an Impersonation Account page and follow the prompts.

LinkedIn has rules against falsifying a persona

LinkedIn requires users to present their true identity, not deceive others and share only authentic information. To report an impostor profile on desktop:

1. Click the More button on the member's profile. Then choose 🏴 Report/Block.

2. Select Report content on profile in the What do you want to do? window that pops up.

3. Select Profile information in the What content on this profile are you reporting? window.

4. Select Suspicious, spam or fake in the Why are you reporting the profile information on this profile? window.

5. Choose either the ◯ Fake account or ◯ Impersonation circles in the How is this suspicious, spam, or fake? window.

6. Click Submit or Back.

To make a report on the app:

1. Tap the circled ellipsis to the right of a profile page | Report or block.

2. Select Report content on profile in the What do you want to do? page.

3. Select Profile information in the What content on this profile are you reporting? page.

4. Select Suspicious, spam, or fake from the Why are you reporting the profile information on this profile? page

5. Select Fake account, Impersonation or Hacked account.

6. Click Submit to proceed.

TikTok permits parodies but not pretenders

TikTok does not allow accounts that pose as another person or entity in a deceptive manner and may ask a user to revise a profile or ban the account, according to its community guidelines. It does allow accounts that are clearly commentary, fan based or parody. But the username must indicate it is a commentary, fan or parody account and not affiliated with the subject of the account.

To report an account that you believe is impersonating you, follow these steps:

1. Go to the profile of the account. In the top right corner, you'll see three dots, either a horizontal ellipsis on Apple devices ⋯ or a vertical ellipsis on Android phones︙.

2. Tap the three dots, ⋯ or ︙, in the upper right corner.

3. Select Report.

4. Select Report account as the reason.

5. Select Pretending to be someone.

6. Select Me.

7. Submit the report.

Twitter: Pseudonyms OK, but not impersonation

Twitter does not require that users display real names or images on profiles but does not allow an account to impersonate anyone. However, commentary, fan and parody accounts are permitted, as long as such accounts distinguish themselves in both their account name and bio.

To report a violation:

1. Visit the Twitter Help Center’s Authenticity on Twitter page.

2. Select An account is impersonating me or somebody else, which is generally the first choice to answer the required question, What issue are you having?

3. Click on the down-pointing arrow ﹀ and select An account is pretending to be me in the second box that requests Please tell us more.

4. Enter the email address where you want Twitter to contact you.

5. Click the circle to the left of 〇 An account under the question Which entity are you reporting? so it looks filled in, ◉.

6. Enter the username of the account you are reporting.

7. Choose the way this account pretending to be: The account is using multiple elements of my identify (name, image and other personal information) or They are using only my image by clicking on your answer.

8. Enter a description of the problem, being careful not to include a password, address, phone number or other personal information.

9. Confirm your identity by uploading an image of a driver’s license, passport or other government-issued photo ID. You need to submit separate proof if you use a trade name or pseudonym that does not appear on a government-issued photo ID.

10. Click the Submit button.

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