Telegram is becoming a more and more popular alternative social media platform, but as with all these platforms, there are a lot of scammers as well as genuine people/profiles. So how can you spot a scam or a fake Telegram channel versus a real one? There are a lot of fake channels that are copycat channels impersonating a real person’s channel, so how do you tell the real one from the fake ones?
There is a “fake” label next to some Telegram channel names:
But let’s start by saying this ISN’T reliable, as there are lots of genuine people on Telegram who’s channel has been falsely labelled as fake when it isn’t (it IS the real person on that channel). This tag seems to get added when a lot of people report a channel as fake, but a lot of these people are trolls who are falsely reporting the channel to undermine the owner. And it seems to take a long time to get a false “fake” label removed from a channel.
Therefore we need to use our common sense and critical thinking a bit more to spot a fake Telegram channel, and in this guide, we’ll list some criteria to to use to spot a fake/copycat/clone/scammer Telegram channel from a real one.
Let’s get started!
1. Check For A Realistic Number Of Subscribers
This is a nice little trick that you can catch out a fake Telegram channel with right away – they’ve got too small a number of subscribers to be the real person if they’re a copycat channel.
The number of channel subscribers is displayed directly under the channel owner/name:
If it’s a real, legitimate person who is quite well known and has other social media platforms, a YouTube presence, and/or a website, you can expect at least several thousand Telegram subs if they’ve been on a there a while. The larger legit channels can have tens or even hundreds of thousands of subs.
Copycat/scam/fake channels won’t have that many, it’s might just be a handful, or into the tens, but not more than that. If the number of channel subs doesn’t make sense for who the person is, how well known they are and how large their overall following is, it’s probably a fake channel.
As a backup, it’s also a good idea to visit the real person/company’s website or other social media platforms where they have social media links, and save their actual real Telegram channel link to your favorites bar, so you know you’ve always got the right one.
2. Sending Unsolicited Direct Messages
This is another common sense precaution that lets you see when a channel/person is fake. They’ll often send unsolicited direct messages via Telegram. Legitimate, credible people with a public presence wouldn’t do that. They don’t send random, unprompted messages to people they don’t know on social media platforms.
Also, the general speech and language patterns here should give this away. If you get a random message from a supposed Telegram channel that seems to be someone in the public you know, but the entire tone is weird and not like they would speak, it’s a scam.
Most legit people in the public eye wouldn’t send random messages to people saying “hello, how are you? how’s your family? how is your health?”, or other such nonsense, to people they don’t even know.
3. Trying To Solicit Contact or Payments via Whatsapp
This is another closely related thing that legit business people just wouldn’t do on Telegram. You might get spam messages giving out Whatsapp numbers offering their “services”, like coaching, “Crypto”, etc.
Real, credible people in the public eye don’t solicit business this way, by spamming random messages/replies giving out Whatsapp numbers trying to “phish” for business leads. It’s not the way any kind of successful person with an online business does things. They don’t need to go begging for business like this. If you see this on a Telegram channel, or in your DMs or replies, it’s a scam. It’s common in YouTube comments sections as well.
Credible people/businesses online will only normally take payments via their own website or some other secured method, not via DMs or some number randomly given on Telegram. Same for anyone asking for ANY sensitive personal information over Telegram – don’t hand it over, it’s a scam. Legit people/companies won’t ever ask for this on a platform like Telegram.
4. Generally Incongruent Behavior From The Channel Owner
To bring together the last few points, more generally you’re just looking for weird behavior from a Telegram channel/owner that your common sense tells you is not how the real person would actually act if it’s a copycat channel. Most impersonators are really quite bad at it, and it’s really just on us to use some common sense judgement to spot the tell-tale signs.
If they’re saying things the actual person wouldn’t say with bizarre speech/language patterns that don’t make sense, doing things the real person wouldn’t do, or just overly pushy in soliciting contacts or money, it’s a fake/scam channel and should be ignored and reported.
If it’s a supposed family member with a supposed emergency, just ask for some detailed, specific, clarifying information that only they would know, to make sure it’s not an impersonator who has somehow got their basic details and trying to scam money off you under the pretense of a made up “emergency”.
Use common sense and good judgement and you should be fine.
The Most Common Telegram Scams
Here’s a quick list of the most common current scams that are often run on fake or dishonest Telegram channels:
- Copycat channels (as covered above)
- “Crypto expert” nonsense
- Bot scams, posing as customer service reps from companies, trying to solicit personal financial information.
- Tech Support scams (again trying to get personal info off you)
- Crypto giveaways
- Lookalike Telegram admin accounts
- Fake classified ads (again trying to get you to enter payment info)
- Fake job listings asking for interviews over Telegram
- Friend in need scams – posing as a friend/family member, urgently pushing for money etc.
- Romance scams
See this article for on each of these common scams. Bitcoin and other crypto seems to be the main scam of the moment, so watch out especially for this (advice, “offers”, “deals”, “giveaways” etc).
If you’re seeing any of this kind of stuff in a channel, or in your DMs/replies, it’s most likely either a fake or an untrustworthy channel and you should delete/block it and report. Never hand over financial or other sensitive personal information over Telegram.
Reporting A Fake Telegram Channel
There’s an easy feature to report a fake Telegram channel. Just click on the 3 dots icon, next to the channel name, and tap the Report option:
This sends a signal to Telegram that the channel is considered fake, though also be aware that channels can be falsely labelled fake if a lot of people report them.