Thursday 3 September 2015

Impersonation on Twitter

I'm not a big fan of Twitter, so I don't use it as often as some other forms of social media. You can imagine my surprise when I found there was two of me on there. Well, not two of me, but two Threading My Way accounts on Twitter. Someone had impersonated me!!!

Impersonation on Twitter... what to do if it happens to you ~ Threading My Way

A couple of weeks ago, I was showing a friend Threading My Way on Twitter. When we did a search, there on the computer, were two accounts, both with the name Pam~Threading My Way.


They weren't identical, though. Can you spot the differences between the two accounts?


The top one is mine, the legitimate account. The second one is the impersonation. They had copied my header, profile pic and name. The blurb they copied, but left out the word love.

You can't see it in the screenshot above, but they also linked backed to my blog as their own.

The user name they had to change so they swapped the last two letters.


Why on earth someone would want to pretend they were me, I have no idea. I don't have lots of followers and I'm not well known. Perhaps they thought it would give them some credibility, but they weren't even posting about sewing related things. They just appeared to be retweeting others tweets. 

The fact that I didn't understand it doesn't mean I didn't care. I did!!!

The screen shot above shows how I discovered the impersonation. Not sure why I didn't search for my exact Twitter name, @ThreadingMyWay, without spaces, but I didn't. Had I typed in the exact name, I doubt that I would have found the copy.


To report the impersonation, all you have to do is click on the gear wheel next to Follow, click on Report and follow the prompts. Yes, I know the screenshot shows Following, but I took it after the fact and I happened to use the account of someone I follow. That's why their name is hidden.


After a few days, I was happy to receive an email from Twitter, saying they had deleted the account of the impersonator.

Have you ever had a similar experience with any social media accounts?

... Pam

17 comments:

  1. Well that is sure weird - imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it's still weird! I wonder what kind of (nefarious?) reason they had for doing it - they were obviously trying to come off as you at a brief glance, so what could they possibly hope to get from their scheme? I'm glad you were able to get it taken down - strange!

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  2. Oh Pam seriously how odd were they retweeting adverts? That's really odd and that they linked to your blog. Glad you got it sorted.

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  3. Oh, wow, internet is a weird place! Glad to hear you took care of it before they could have done any more damages!

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  4. What a weird impersonation. I am surprised what could have been the motive. Good that you got to bust them. A grim reminder of the dark side of internet. Lets all be wary :/

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  5. How strange Pam. They must have been getting something out of it but I am stumped as to what. Glad it was so easy to resolve

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  6. That is very odd! I am glad that you found out and got them removed!

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  7. I'm always amazed that people will do this. I had someone steal photos from my blog of bags that I'd made and post them on another account as bags they were trying to sell. I managed to have their web page taken down. Now I'm off to check my twitter account ... which I rarely use!

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  8. How strange! I don't really use Twitter much either. Just seems to be a pointless exercise for whoever did it! Glad you got it sorted anyway! :)

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  9. How lucky that you found the imposter and took immediate action to have them removed quickly. Perhaps you are more famous than you think! I know your followers certainly appreciate you!

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  10. OH my goodness! Why would anyone want to do that? Maybe because they wanted to ride on your success! Glad it's sorted out though.

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  11. How crazy! Some people are just pretty sad. I'm not surprised you were annoyed, but glad you got it sorted.

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  12. That's just nuts and thank goodness you found it Pam! My guess is that they are a spammer or phisher of some kind. How bizarre.

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  13. Bizarre! Glad you were able to get it straightened out, but that is sooo odd...

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  14. My goodness that is craziness. Off to search for myself ...

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  15. I'm so sorry to hear that someone impersonated you on Twitter, Pam. It's really unsettling when something like this happens. I admire how you handled it calmly and efficiently by reporting it to Twitter, which resulted in the impersonator's account being deleted. ¿Cuánto es para un Divorcio en Nueva York? Your blog post serves as a valuable resource for others who might face a similar situation, offering clear guidance on what to do. Keep up the good work in both protecting your online presence and sharing useful information with your readers!

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