In impersonation scams, scammers pretend to be someone you trust, such as a company, boss, or government agency. They leverage feelings of trust and urgency to ask their victims to fulfill unusual requests. These might be money transfers, or requests for confidential information.
The first step of impersonation scams is identity theft. Impersonation scams can be very convincing and sophisticated, especially with the use of AI tools that enable voice and video cloning. Impersonation scams that happen via email in a corporate environment are called Business Email Compromise (BEC).
How it typically happens
- The scammer will get in touch with the victim by phone, email, or messaging apps
- They will use unfamiliar names or branding
- Leveraging their position of authority, they will request the victim to perform a urgent, unusual action
- This request always involve money (payments, transfers, purchases) or information (on company plans or people)
Red flags
- Slight variations in emails or phone numbers
- Urgent or secretive requests
- Payment instructions changing suddenly
What to do
- Verify the request through a second channel
- Don’t act on urgency alone
- Confirm requests directly
- Report impersonation attempts
Useful articles on online scams
- What is an online scam?
- Types of online scams
- Scam victimology: why did they pick me?
- How scammers choose their targets
- Why so many scams go unreported
- Scam cases that made the news
- AI and the next wave of scams
Useful articles on impersonation scams
- CEO voice deepfake scams
- Deepfake celebrity scams
- Fake profiles and identity cloning
- OnlyFans impersonation and exploitation
