Frustration: Now My Account Was Duplicated 4 Times in a Week by Scammers

A request from my Friends of Medium to help me reach out to my readers as the algo does not show my stories to my readers and readers are spammed and scammed constantly

Not even the patience of a saint can endure this level of stress.

Yesterday, my account was duplicated for the third time, but the removal process was swift. However, today, the duplication has occurred again, and it has been over seven hours with a fake account spamming all my articles, including curated collections featuring stories from our writers.

Given that it’s the weekend, I anticipate it might take some time for the support team to identify and address this offender.

Around 7 hours ago, another scammer exactly from the same scam site duplicated my account and promoted the same so-called writing community using the name of Stephen Moore. I was told that Stephen is a popular writer on Medium so they use his name to deceive writers. They also used several other popular writers.

Here is what it looks like in the comments section of my stories. A comment left by my reader Parenteeny - teenagers can do more 14 hours ago and this scammer left a message 7 hours ago pretending to be me.

Urgent Action

Please report and block this FAKE account, spamming my articles and attempting to scam my readers to join a fake Medium Writers Community using the name of Stephenmore. Please don’t use the Telegram to contact them. It might create cybersecurity issues.

My Frustration

Having authored two stories and despite my earlier communication, some of my readers are still inquiring about the purpose behind inviting them to a writing club. I’m seeking support from my Medium friends to help amplify my story for greater visibility.

Regrettably, my story from three days ago received only 40 views and 19 reads, likely due to the Medium algorithm’s limited distribution for certain content. These readers are only from my direct links. I believe Medium does not want to show these types of stories to readers naturally.

Despite my lack of intention to promote any writing club on Medium, some readers are expressing concerns, prompting me to clarify the situation. This wastes my time and frustrates me.

Indra Raj Pathak uncovered the origin of this writing club on Telegram, and you can explore his conversation with scammers in the context of Dr. Yildiz’s story. These scammers charge $40 for membership.

I urge you not to fall victim to this fraudulent scheme. Your support in sharing this message is crucial to preventing others from being misled.

Can’t We Get Legal Help?

I wonder why Medium hasn’t taken legal action against this scam site that tarnishes its platform. Is it not possible to pursue legal recourse and have them sued? Does Medium lack a legal department that could initiate steps to shut down this deceptive and harmful site? I ask these questions as this is a platform and large community issue now rather than a simple spam issue.

Here’s What Some Readers Think About This Issue

I copied and pasted some valuable and interesting perspectives from the readers who left comments on previous stories. I hope the Medium staff reads these concerns and considers them.

Bill Petro “Pilate asked, “What is truth?” You’ve exposed the imitation of it via. account cloning. Thank you for your writing and your stand for integrity.”

Sinju Thomas “Medium should bring in restriction where the author only can reply to the comments received on a post. If a scammer tries to reply it will create as a new comment and if we find any account suspicious we can report it immediately!”

Aidan McCarthy “This is awful and very distressing Mike. I truly hope Medium Support take action on this. This is becoming the scourge of Medium and undermines us all.”

Marcus aka Gregory Maidman “It seems that every day I am seeing and reporting at least one fake account. Usually I report and move on. The other day I replied asking them what they get out of this activity. No reply. Instead of playing whack-a-mole, I don’t understand why Medium doesn’t implement simple security measures to stop the creation of fake accounts, like not allowing someone to use both the same name and image as an existing account.”

Stories From the Mountain “FYI…. the same was done to another writer on Medium that I subscribe to, and I commented on a story posted under the fake acct., only to receive an identical response as here, except they wanted me to pay $200 to join an exclusive writers forum. All fake accounts have one thing in common … no (or just a couple) followers.”

Patricia Ross said “Truth be told, Mike, I have to read this a second time to start to understand what has happened, being technologically challenged. I’ve been writing on Medium for 2 years now with my stats crawling along the bottom of the graph until recently when I was lucky enough to get a story boosted (I was thrilled!). Views went up, and reads went up. Even money went up. But in the “outside world,” I have been the victim of a scam (I wrote about it . . . escaped by the skin of my teeth!) and am being monitored right now by one of the 3 credit outfits because of a breach on the part of Medicare which may have resulted in all of my personal information, including Personal Health Information, being “out there.” Medicare even had to issue me a new card. I’ve become so paranoid (is it paranoia when it’s justified?) that I check all sources when I get emails from unknown entities. So not only am I technologically challenged, but throw in a criminal element and I’m truly lost. Thanks for your article. I’ll read it again.”

Rebecca Romanelli “I feel the same Mike. It seems like growing numbers of people are being cloned and scammed and some like myself, didn’t know what was happening at first. Thanks to articles like yours, Aiden’s and Dr. Mehmet’s readers are now more astute and aware when they’re being scammed. I immediately report any sketchy comments now. Not only to protect myself, but out of concern for other writers. Medium is a huge platform and therefore vulnerable, but I think they’re doing their best to keep up with the bad actors and boot them out. This is stressful. I hope you can relax soon. 🌟🩵🌟”

Susan Johnson: “Hi Mike, I received a message responding to my comment on your site this morning. I immediately could see it was a scam and reported it. So sorry this is happening to you and others, and maybe Medium isn’t where I should be. Take care, Mike; we are all supporting you.”

Dee “I’ve received the message multiple times as a response to a comment I left on your story. It seemed suspicious, so I went to the profile and blocked it. However, I’m puzzled as to how it continues to reappear despite being blocked.”

Surekha Chandrasekhar “Mike, this is terrible! I have received cloned messages from many writers as many as six or seven. Now I am very careful to check back the suspicious response. On checking we can see scam accounts have barely any followers compared to original. Thank you sharing 🙏”

Pernoste & Dahl “It seems we live in the Wild West of the internet. Where are the sheriffs when you need them. How are imposters allowed to even set up an account with nearly identical names to existing members. Shouldn’t there be a delay and a red-flag for accounts like that? We’re not controlling AI abusers either, either.😡Anneliese”

Joanie Adams - Sightseer; Conjurer Of Words “It is a damn shame such things happen, though, as the internet remains a mostly unaccountable place, I wouldn’t be surprised about such things, but a platform like Medium should certainly try and manage that — somehow. I am yet to be cloned, I hope that I won’t be, but how I talk will hopefully show that anyone that does attempt it, will be seen as a faker. My regards to you, Mike — Medium has not been awfully generous to me lately.”

Penny Grubb “So sorry this is happening to you, Mike. I am a recent follower of yours and have already had 2 responses from the fake account. The first one vaguely puzzled me (so I ignored it), but I recognised the 2nd for what it was and reported it. I then checked for a genuine post of yours thinking I might put a PM on it to let you know. But I found this and clearly you know only too well. I sincerely hope that the Medium team find a way to stop this rot before it endangers the whole platform.”

Mimosa Days “I have had to report and block at least four fake copycat accounts since I’ve been on Medium. They always have 1 or no followers and say something odd about contacting them on Telegram or some other link.”

Kristie Leong M.D. “I feel so badly for you! I know how I would feel. Unfortunately, I think as AI gains wider use, we’ll see even more scams and cloning. I hope Medium will take action.”

The One Alternative View “Sorry to hear that Mike. I never imagined such an issue would ever crop up in Medium. With the kind of work you do, it might feel disheartening to continue even considering yourself a friend of Medium. I hope you, Dr. Mehmet and Aiden get solutions to these repetitive problems. Sooner rather than later.”

Chris Thompson “These people are scum. Luckily they can be reported and removed very quickly. But still so frustrating. These people are scum.”

Frank Ontario | empathy, logic, love. “Thank you Mike. This is both ghastly and horrifying. Having recently been traumatized by an auto accident (was not physically hurt) and continued poor sleep. I would like to respond in a more thoughtful manner. Maybe later. I can relate to the feelings you are having — of having been cloned”

Ammara Hassan “Mike your pain is real. I can understand that. I dont know why these spammers and scammers are cloning the account of every other writer. Medium should take serius step again these fake accounts.”

Ella de Jong “I’m getting ‘good’ at recognizing AI content … Sadly it’s needed. Take care, Mike! Don’t let them win!”

Meghan E. Gattignolo “Thank you for posting about this. I’ve noticed a few suspicious comments from people on my stories and responses and wondered what was happening!”

Intellectual Addict “Or AI you might think but narcissist are nuts”

Marcus Musick “So sorry about your experience. It seems to be happening to a lot of people on Medium lately.”

Mariana Busarova “ It is truly frustrating. I always block and report such accounts!”

Elaine Hilides “Scary and sad. As soon as I see a prompt to contact someone on a different platform, I am suspicious. Thank you for highlighting this issue.”

tarun bhatt “That’s a very sad state to be in. I generally report scammers like this but will be more vigilant going forward”

Request Help from My Friends of Medium

Dear friends, kindly share this story on your social platforms to ensure that a broader audience is aware that the writing club requests are not originating from me but from scammers attempting to deceive writers into joining their dubious sites and making payments.

It’s crucial to raise awareness and put a halt to this scam on Medium, as it undermines the platform’s value and unnecessarily stresses the community.

Regrettably, some members have fallen into this trap, becoming victims and losing money as these scammers exploit the names of reputable writers.

Please consider creating a friend link for this story and share it with other readers as my stories about this scam are not distributed.

Elizabeth Emerald, Dawn Ulmer, Lorwen Harris Nagle, PhD, Antonio Segovia, MD., David Mokotoff, MD, Dr. Gabriella Korosi, Dr John Frederick Rose, Dr. Christine Chuckle, Dr. Julian Barkan, Mike Broadly, DHSc, Martha Manning, Ph.D., Michael Burg, MD (Satire Sommelier), Wayne Stelk, PhD, Seda Anbarcı, Rebecca Romanelli, Sven Vandenberghe, tarun bhatt, David B. Grinberg 🇺🇸, Pernoste & Dahl, Annelise Lords, Elaine Hilides, Bill Abbate, Angie Mangino, Haimish Mead, Rui Alves, Amir Bibi, The Bumble Life, Ali Alzahrani, Editor, Zeem, Barbara J. Martin, Luay Rahil, Sherry Atkinson, Jay Squires, Tom Kane, Fiona McDerment, Ammara Hassan, Rick Allen, Akaahan Terungwa, Mariana Busarova, Daniela Dragas, john creed, Meghan E. Gattignolo, Britt H., Shanté Nixon, Darlene López, Arosa Jabein, James Boylan, Ivylockewrites, Jodes Wiltshire, Kashi Writes, Robin Christine Honigsberg, Jill Ebstein, Libby Shively McAvoy, Lysandros Lysandrou, Alina Pitt, NADINE H, Senetta Diane, Omni Essence, Power of Positivity, Deborah Camp, Misty Rae, ✅ Doc Samurai Sam, Mhstuart, Wesley van Peer, Hira Chaudhry, Anshul Kummar, Ruby Noir 😈, Memoona Bilal, Charles Davie, Ani Vals, Cancer Husband, Usman Khalid Qureshi, Pete J J, Jake Roper, Gill McCulloch. FranMorelandJohns. Lovely Poems, Sanjay Singhal, Michael Zwierzanski, Patricia Ross, George M Pantazis, Lanu Pitan🥰, Matthew Bamberg, Leon Macfayden, Justiss Goode — 2.0, Scarlet Ibis James 🦩, Prasanna Srinath Subhasinghe, Oksana Kukurudza’s Sunflowers Rarely Break, Harry Hogg, Jamel Hendley/Greenviool/PawProfits, Parenteeny — teenagers can do more, Delaney Patterson, Livia Dabs RN,MSc, The Sturg, Øivind H. Solheim, David Rudder, , Haroon Shauket, Javad Oftadeh, Momentum, Sam writes 🌸, Eiman Fatima, B.R. Shenoy, Sweet Honeylu, Yana Bostongirl, The Daily Updater, Dr.Ramesh Chaurasiya, Saeed Sobhani two, Hammad Ahmad, Sania Haroon, Iqraashraf, Flow-Writer🌻, Alyce, Brian Dickens Barrabee, Nedelcu Alina, Derya Gungor, Ph.D.

Thank you for your help and support.

ILLUMINATION editors have also posted a crucial bulletin, alerting the community about this issue. We are doing our best from our end, and now it’s Medium’s turn to swiftly eliminate these spammers and discourage the creation of accounts with identical names and photos.

Here’s the key message from our chief editor Dr Mehmet Yildiz

“The escalating proliferation of counterfeit accounts on Medium transcends mere inconvenience, posing a formidable threat to our community’s trust, integrity, and safety. These deceptive entities disrupt the essence of authentic engagement, inundating our feeds with dubious content and eroding the credibility of genuine creators.

Encountering these accounts not only jeopardizes users’ exposure to scams and misinformation but also results in a loss of valuable time and a dent in trust. For Medium itself, this poses a significant risk to its authenticity, potentially alienating creators and readers.

A proactive stance by Medium is imperative. Implementing tighter verification processes during account creation, strengthening innovative reporting tools, and enhancing algorithms are pivotal steps to curb the surge of harmful accounts. Equally crucial is education, empowering users with the knowledge to identify and report counterfeit accounts to safeguard the integrity of Medium.

Recognizing the telltale signs of these fake personas — such as a lack of followers, non-member status, and unconventional language usage — can bolster our collective vigilance. Safeguarding Medium’s integrity is a shared responsibility that demands collaborative efforts between the platform and its users.”

Here are the guiding stories by Dr Yildiz.

Thank you for reading my story and acting carefully on this insecure platform. To read my stories, you may subscribe to my content.

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