Very worrying! Advice regarding fake Twitter accounts...

@GCarlD

@GCarlD

Well-Known Member
Hi guys,

I have been using this week to do a bit of spring cleaning, rebranding, updating my site and social media accounts. Last night, after uploading my new logo onto my Twitter page, I noticed there are 2 other Twitter accounts with my Twitter handle misspelt, that has stolen and are using my original brand ID header and logo (which I have only just updated with my recent rebrand). Even more worryingly, they have been active since 2014! Which is the year I first joined Twitter...

They have literally stolen all the information about my business/ services and my url, which I haven't clicked on as it probably links to some dodgy site, and put it on their fake Twitter pages. An exact duplicate of my original Twitter page, before I updated my page.

I don't know what to say - I am a bit bewildered at this point.

Has anyone experienced anything like this before?
 
I am seriously shiting myself slightly. I have reported the accounts to Twitter for duplication, but I have no idea what else they could have stolen from me. They could have my whole portfolio for all I know!
 
if they register before your registration. twitter can understand you as a duplicate account holder. so be careful about all this.
 
If the links are on their Twitter pages and they're spelt correctly then they'll be linking to your website.
 
Ok so I haven't heard back from Twitter yet, but it was only yesterday that I reported the accounts. Just a bit anxious.

My Twitter handle is @GCarlD. The two fake duplicate accounts are '@GCDrla' and '@GCrlaD'.
 
Duplicate accounts such as yours are normally created by bots to be sold on as real accounts to people who buy followers. That's why they link back to your own site, so the branding etc matches and they look like legit accounts.
 
Paul Murray said:
Duplicate accounts such as yours are normally created by bots to be sold on as real accounts to people who buy followers. That's why they link back to your own site, so the branding etc matches and they look like legit accounts.
Click to expand...

I see, but why target me?
 
It's likely random. Or you've given an app or website access to your Twitter account that's a bit iffy. Could be any number of reasons really.
 
Paul Murray said:
It's likely random. Or you've given an app or website access to your Twitter account that's a bit iffy. Could be any number of reasons really.
Click to expand...

The only apps/ sites that are linked to my Twitter are other social media sites such as Dribble, Linkedin etc, or sites that allow you to log in via Gmail/ Twitter rather than signing up from scratch. All well-known, reputable sites though...

Hopefully once Twitter sees my report, they'll be swiftly removed.
 
They probably just scrape accounts. You might have used a particular hashtag or key phrasethey were targeting for example. Your 'accounts' are probably bundled into different categories, so when someone needs accounts related to 'design' or 'graphics' to up their follower count, they can grab yours.

One of my mates found a guy on Twitter with his name using his logo (that I designed) for his photography. That was an actual account though, not a bot.
 
Thanks everyone for your help, this issue has now been resolved. I'll copy & paste the email I received from Twitter this morning, it may come in useful for someone in future, should they find fake duplicates of their accounts. I'd also encourage everyone to have a search, particularly under the 'People' search filter category, to check whether this has happened to any of your private/ business accounts. I purely come across my wannabe online doppelgangers by accident, due to me updating my profiles with my rebrand.

Here's the email from Twitter:

"Hello,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We've removed the reported accounts for a violation of Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules), and specifically our rules regarding impersonation on Twitter (https://support.twitter.com/articles/18366-impersonation-policy).

Any documents you may have uploaded will be deleted.

Thanks,

Twitter"
 
scotty said:
I know! :D ........what next? (n)
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Well, this is completely off topic but since you asked lol I have never been able to tackle the email sig issue. On computer screens, my 72ppi, 17KB (used to be 11KB) email signature looks nice and sharp but on smartphones it looks a bit blurry... Obviously, I want to keep the size down as low as possible, but I don't see how I can rectify this issue without dramatically increasing the file size, in which case it wouldn't really be worth it...
 
@GCarlD said:
I'd also encourage everyone to have a search, particularly under the 'People' search filter category, to check whether this has happened to any of your private/ business accounts.
Click to expand...

There's a lot of Paul Murray's all living much more exciting lives than me :(
 
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