My Evil Impersonator Doesn’t Have A Medium Gold Star. Don’t Get Fooled!

I’m not asking anyone to contact me on WhatsApp. Those are scams. Here’s how to know for sure. (With screencaps)

Y’all — I have been getting PMs and emails all day letting me know I have an impersonator. Again.

Ugh. I know.

It’s the third time.

Can I show you something?

Here’s what the scammer is doing

Scammers reply to comments and pretend to be me. But take a close look. Can you spot the differences? The real “me” has the green AUTHOR by my name. Also, the Medium gold star. The scammer doesn’t have either.

I am not James and James is not me. See?

If you were to go to the scammer’s profile, here’s what you’d see. He has created a profile using my name and photo. But it’s not me.

Always, always look for the Medium gold star…

Scammers don’t get paid accounts. They’re here to scam. To get you to call a number or click a link. They want to scam as many people into clicking or calling as they can before Medium shuts them down.

When Medium shuts the scam account down (and they always do) the scammer will come right back with another fake profile using a trusted writer’s name and photo. Tomorrow, “James” will have another name.

Maybe he’ll target me again. Maybe he’ll target you.

But he will target someone.

Always, always look for the gold Medium star on the profile photo. If it’s not there, it’s a fake.

Anyone can report these…

If you see this happening to a writer you know, you can let the writer know. Or you can click on the profile and email it to [email protected]

Medium will take care of it. And the scammer will come back again. They always do. But if we all work together to get rid of this crap, maybe they’ll get the message and go somewhere else.

One can hope.