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Last updated on: March 28, 2024
Impersonation scams have increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic as fraudsters exploit confusion around shifts in the economy. The Federal Trade Commission stated that costs from impersonation scams have skyrocketed to $2 billion in losses from 2020 to 2021 (an 85% increase).
Impersonators disguise themselves with stolen identities in many ways to make a profit. In this article, we shed light on the most common impersonation scams and show you how to tackle them.
Summary:
Impersonation scams are practices of copying identifying elements of a person, brand, or organization for fraudulent purposes. Simply put, an impersonator pretends to be someone else to get an advantage. This motivation usually lies in stealing sensitive data or selling counterfeit products.
As we will see in this article, impersonation scams go far beyond someone calling you asking for your bank details because you allegedly won the lottery. In today’s online world, infringers have multiple options for sophisticated impersonation scams. Read on to get a picture of the most common business impersonation fraud and learn how you can deal with them.
These are the most common impersonation scams you should safeguard your business from:
Impersonators create fake social media accounts that copy the names, images, logos, or other identifying information of a person, brand, or organization for deceitful purposes. Creating fake social media accounts is one of the easiest forms of impersonation fraud for scammers, which explains the drastic number of fake social media accounts. As an example, Facebook alone removed about 1.8 billion fake accounts in the third quarter of 2021, up from 1.3 billion fake accounts in the corresponding quarter in 2020.
Scammers take advantage of the fact that it can take several days until newly created accounts are detectable. Impersonators exploit these timeframes of less visibility to target customers with aggressive fake advertising campaigns. In the second step, customers are often redirected to a website outside the social network where the scammer sells counterfeit products pretending to be the real brand.
Fake mobile apps impersonate businesses by copying the design and/or function of legitimate apps. These fraudulent apps execute different malicious actions after downloading them, often unnoticeable by the user. Scammers try to profit from consumers who are unaware that they are downloading a fake app in various ways. These include:
Domain spoofing is a frequently executed impersonation scam that refers to the creation of fake web addresses to defraud customers or employees of a company. Scammers usually create look-a-like websites that copy the appearance of an existing business website including its layout, product listings, and trademarks of the brand. Those copied websites often look identical to the original website or contain only slight differences which are difficult to detect by visitors.
Impersonators use two different spoofing techniques to create these fake web addresses, cybersquatting, and typosquatting.
This technique refers to the unauthorized registration and use of domain names of already existing brands and their trademarks. This often happens when businesses fail to register possible domain names for their brands.
Infringers usually profit from cybersquatting in two ways. One option is trying to sell the domain name back to the original business at a multiple. The other one is using a fake web address for selling counterfeits of the original brand. That way, in addition to imitating the website design, scammers also copy the products of the brand and try to sell them to unaware customers.
Typosquatting is the registration of slight variations or misspellings of a genuine domain name like “facebok.com” instead of “facebook.com”. Typo domains often transfer users to fake websites or landing pages that execute a variety of vicious actions that generate profits for the host.
Typo website impersonation fraud often tricks users into revealing personal data or installing malware or adware on the device of the user. Another popular typosquatting impersonating scam is offering products that are never sent to the buyer after receiving the payment.
As outlined above, scammers try to steal personal data from users through fake apps and domain spoofing scams. However, infringers also target companies to steal sensitive business or customer information. Impersonators do so by implementing a brand’s logo or name in emails pretending to be someone from the company and asking employees to reveal certain information.
That way, scammers seek to get a company’s banking information, and customer data like social security numbers, passwords, or bank details. This information can be used by scammers for further frauds like obtaining loans or credit cards in the company’s name for example.
How to tackle impersonation scams
Impersonators execute their scams on multiple platforms and in various ways. Therefore, you need a protection approach that is capable of finding and removing business impersonation fraud threats efficiently online.
Some protective steps can be done manually. Registering your IP gives you proof of ownership and makes enforcement easier if someone is stealing and using your identity online. You can also report fake impersonation accounts to the respective social media platforms.
On our blog, we provide step-by-step guides on how to report an impersonation account on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter.
Tackling impersonation scams manually has a few fundamental hurdles. The biggest issue is the vast number of options for scammers to impersonate your business online. Cybercriminals can set up fake accounts in no time and often register a new domain or account quickly after an impersonation has been taken down. Additionally, not all social media platforms are quick and efficient in removing fake accounts.
You can bypass these obstacles by working with technology-based solutions that stop impersonation scams at scale.
Red Points Impersonation Removal Software is an all-encompassing solution to protect your business from impersonation scams. It automatically detects and reports scam websites, domains, social media accounts, and apps to protect your clients, reputation, and revenues around the clock. Impersonation scams mean revenue losses for your business and our solution can help to recover your revenues.
Let’s summarize the key points from what we have learned:
Red Points Impersonation Protection Software safeguards your brand from impersonation scams around the clock. Reach out to us today to learn more about our service.
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