This morning I woke to a strange message from a friend. She asked me if two Twitter handles were mine? I replied no, why?
Turns out some people who I first assumed were bots have taken my Twitter name Gingermommy and are using it for their name. Not their handle as Twitter will not allow this, but their real name.
So no big deal.
I had this before. A very nice lady who is also Canadian used this name. There was a bit of confusion but she was clearly her and I was clearly me. Nothing was the same but the real name.
But this was different. These two are using my name, my avatar pic ( a sketch of me) my profile information and copying my tweets. They are also tweeting and following my followers and friends. Pretending to be me.
Creepy, yes!
Annoying, Yes!
Not only are they copying my tweets but they are doing spam like tweets and tweeting about being drunk. Not cool. NOT something I would do. I work with brands, I tweet with family’s, teacher’s, charities, This is not me!!!
So I tweeted my friends and told them of this impostor. I posted and had my friends report them. I have blocked them and tweeted Twitter for support. I also filled out a report for one. Could not for the other as the complaint did not really fit the multiple choice I had to choose from .
As you can see they are following me. Why they would do this, I have no idea. I suggest if they are following you, block and report. Hopefully after a while they will go away or Twitter will take action. I have seen this happen to other bloggers before. I wish I had paid closer attention to how they fixed it. I assumed it would never happen to me. WHY ME?!?
I know imitation is a form of flattery but this is really too much.
So now I sit and wait. Hope no other account pops up. Wait to hear back from Twitter and hope enough people report and block to put an end to this. I am clueless what they even think they will gain from this.
If this happens to you Tweet @Support and report
Report your account being impersonated
If you are unsure if a Twitter account is the person you think it is, email them, tweet them, message them BE SURE!
That is horrible! I cant believe how low some people can be!
Omg! I hope I haven't been tweeting the wrong you!! I hope they can fix this!
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This is ridiculous. It sucks that twitter's help isn't all that helpful ever. There must be something they're getting out of this crazy stunt, but not sure what yet. Its funny thought that @iiplbill is following @yxemobui, so they're not exclusive. It's sad that some people that you would consider as true followers are following these two accounts as well. :/
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That is just crazy. Never would of thought of that happening.
Very creepy indeed! But people have to know who the "REAL" you is. Look at the huge follower different between you all! LOL Hope this gets sorted out!
I never heard of that. It's good to know.
This happens on Facebook. It is the new hack. People take your influence (and on Facebook, your friends) and try to gain something from it. This happened to a personal friend of mine of Facebook and the fake account, which looked very much like my friend's real account, messaged me asking me for financial support.
Thank you so much for posting this! You are not alone…
I think I too would be both creeped out and annoyed by this. I am not sure what they could gain from doing such a thing. Perhaps you are not the only person they have done this to.
Could you help me? I am being impersonated by 3 people and I have proof. I am hurt and disgusted by these Twitter imposters. I don’t understand why they are doing this to me. A family member looked me up and saw disgusting quotes from the impersonators thinking this is me. I contacted Twitter and they’re saying I don’t have enough proof. How could that be when a search on the internet for my name is done I am the only owner in the world whom has it!! Is there anything you could do for me?
I had others report their accounts for spam as well I reported them to twitter and blocked them.
I want to deactivate their accounts but Twitter will not help me so I will be writing an article. I am so frustrated. I feel violated.