23 September 2026 · Telegram Ban Service · 17 min read

Telegram impersonation: how to report a fake account and get the copy taken down

Open the fake profile, tap the three-dot menu (More on iPhone), choose Report and pick Fake Account, which is the in-app label for what Telegram's API calls a report for impersonation. If the copy is pretending to be you, also message @notoscam and email [email protected] with its t.me link.

Copying a person on Telegram takes about a minute and no skill. Telegram passed "significantly over 1 billion monthly active users" in March 2025, Pavel Durov announced, and every one of those accounts can set any display name and upload any photo. Other people pay for the damage. Impostor scams were the fraud category Americans reported most in 2025, nearly one in three fraud reports and $3.5 billion in reported losses, according to the Federal Trade Commission, whose March testimony to Congress put the count above 1 million reports. In crypto the growth was steeper still: impersonation scams rose more than 1,400% on the year before, Chainalysis found in January 2026. A copy is cheap to make. Getting it removed takes the right reason, the right desk and a few pieces of proof that no impostor can fabricate, and that is what the rest of this page is about.

Fake Account and impersonation are one report on Telegram

They are the same reason under two names. Telegram's API reference lists a report reason called inputReportReasonFake and describes it in three words: "Report for impersonation". In the apps that reason appears as Fake Account, the English string stored under ReportChatFakeAccount on Android, ReportPeer.ReasonFake on iPhone and lng_report_reason_fake on desktop in Telegram's translation platform. Searching for how to report fake telegram account and searching for report impersonation telegram end at the same button.

Telegram impersonation, for the purposes of that button, is any account, bot, channel or group presenting itself as a real person, a brand or Telegram itself. Telegram's own vocabulary changes with the page you happen to be reading, which is why people search for it five different ways:

One practical warning comes with the menu. Since October 2024 "the list of reporting reasons is now dynamically updated from the server," Telegram's blog announced, so Fake Account can sit one level down on some versions. Read every option before you settle; the way the menu branches is traced in how Telegram's report menu is served.

Which parts of a Telegram profile can an impostor copy?

Everything a visitor sees first: the name, the photo and the bio. None of those three is checked for uniqueness, so a copy can match yours character for character, and a moderator comparing two identical cards has nothing to decide on. Build the report on what cannot be duplicated instead.

First among those is the @username. Telegram's FAQ allows "a-z, 0-9 and underscores" and adds that usernames are case-insensitive, "Telegram and TeleGram is the same user", while the API method for setting one caps the length at 5 to 32 characters. Handles are handed out first come, first served. So the impostor cannot take @jane_doe. It takes @jane_d0e, @janedoe_ or @jane__doe, and capital letters are no help to it because they do not make a new name. Put both handles side by side in your report, spelled out.

Next comes the account ID, the number Telegram's servers use for every account, which the owner never chooses and a copy cannot borrow. A handle can be swapped in seconds after a report; the number stays with the account. Telegram Desktop has an experimental setting, "Show Peer IDs in Profile", which prints it "below their Bio / Description", and noting it down before you file means a renamed copy is still identifiable later.

A checkmark settles nothing here, because neither account will have one. "Sorry, Telegram doesn't verify user accounts at the moment," its verification page says; the official tick goes to large official channels, groups and bots. Third-party verifiers "use completely different icons", and Telegram adds that those verifiers are "regular users equally subject to Telegram's Terms of Service." A badge on a personal profile is weaker evidence than a handle. If the copy is working under a SCAM or FAKE label already, the meaning of that label is covered in the flags Telegram writes into an account.

The stranger info page is the evidence most people never screenshot

When someone outside your contacts writes to you for the first time, Telegram shows an information page about them. It arrived on 7 March 2025 under the heading "Know Who's Messaging You with Contact Confirmation", and the announcement said it exists to help you "spot scams, avoid impersonators, and verify who you're talking to". It lists the country of the sender's phone number, any groups you share, "When they joined Telegram — so you can spot fresh accounts", when they last changed their name or picture, and whether the account is official, third-party verified or a regular user.

None of this is decoration. Telegram's API has carried them since Layer 200 as registration_month, stored as a month and year, phone_country, name_change_date and photo_change_date on the peerSettings object, and Telegram's developer notes say they "can come in handy for users to detect and block spam or recently hijacked accounts." For an impersonation case that is close to a confession. A copy of a person who has used Telegram since 2019 that joined last month, took its current name four days ago and its photo the same afternoon cannot explain those three dates away. Two notes on getting hold of it. Only the person the copy writes to sees this page, so if it never messaged you, ask a friend it did contact for a screenshot of theirs. And capture it as soon as that first message arrives, before anyone replies or blocks; Telegram built the page for first contact, and we would not count on it looking the same after a long exchange. One wording quirk: the announcement talks about a changed username; the API field records the name, which is the part a copy actually changes.

How to report a fake Telegram account for impersonation, step by step

Evidence first, then the profile report, then the messages. That order holds on every device.

1. Copy the fake's t.me link and @username into a note, next to your own real link and handle.
2. Screenshot its profile, and the stranger info page if it wrote to you or to someone you know. Crop your own name out of anything you plan to share.
3. Open its profile by tapping the name at the top of the chat.
4. Open the menu there, three dots on Android and desktop or More on iPhone, and choose Report.
5. Pick Fake Account. If the first screen shows other headings, open them before choosing Other.
6. In the comment box, write one checkable line: "Impersonates @jane_doe (t.me/jane_doe). Joined 08.2026, renamed 19 Sep, asked two of her clients for payment on 20 Sep."
7. Report the copy's worst messages one by one under the same reason, then block it.

Step six is where most reports are won or lost; the comment box is the only free text in the whole flow, and "this is fake" gives a reviewer nothing to open. Message-level reports, the second half of the job, are covered in reporting a single message.

How to report a fake Telegram account on Android

On Android the profile route is the three-dot menu at the top right of the fake's profile, then Report, then Fake Account. For a single message, Telegram's FAQ gives the gesture exactly: "On Telegram for Android, tap the message and select Report from the menu." That is a tap, not the long press many guides describe; a long press on Android selects the message instead. On iOS the FAQ says "press and hold the message", and on Telegram Desktop, Web or macOS you right-click it. Whatever reasons appear next come from the same server list, so how to report impersonation on telegram app versions differs only in where the menu sits, never in what the report sends.

When the copy is a channel, a group or a bot

A cloned channel is reported as a whole from its own profile, the same report pointed at a channel instead of a person, and the whole-channel report explains what that filing carries and what it leaves out. A group trading on your name follows the same path, filed from the group's own profile. Bots need one extra step. A bot is a token its operator can reissue within minutes, so report the operator's account alongside it, as reporting a Telegram bot describes. For a brand being copied the lasting fix is Telegram's own checkmark on the real channel, which the verification page reserves for large official channels, groups and bots.

Someone is impersonating me on Telegram: what does @notoscam need?

A message that proves two accounts exist and only one of them is you. Telegram's FAQ has a question written for this exact case, "What if someone is pretending to be me?", and a one-line answer: "If a scammer is pretending to be you, please contact @NoToScam." The desk is for the person being copied. A friend who spots a copy of you files through the Fake Account reason instead.

When we opened t.me/notoscam on 23 September 2026, we saw Report Impersonation as the name under the photo, followed by a verification tick, and the bio underneath said "Reports about scammers are welcome here." Open it from that link or from the FAQ rather than from search results; a desk that takes impersonation reports is an obvious thing for impostors to copy. Then send one message holding everything, in this order:

1. The copy's t.me link and @username.
2. Your own t.me link and @username, stated as the real account.
3. The stranger info page screenshot, with its join date and name-change date visible.
4. What the copy did, with a date: who it contacted and what it asked for.
5. For a public figure or a business, one outside link (a website or another verified profile) that names your real handle.

Screenshots follow as separate messages. Leave out anything that reads as a feud; moderators remove copies, they do not settle disputes. And change what the copy depends on at the same time: put "my only Telegram account is @yourhandle" in your bio and pin it in any channel you run. People checking which account is real will look there first, and so will a reviewer.

Can you report a fake Telegram profile online or by email, without the app?

By email, yes. Through a web form, only if you are in the European Union. Everything else starts inside Telegram.

Use [email protected], which the FAQ calls Telegram's "automated takedown email address", with one condition attached: "please make sure to include links (like t.me/... or @...) to the content on Telegram which you think needs attention from our moderators." An impersonation email therefore leads with links, not with the story. Put the copy's link and handle first, your real link and handle second, then two or three sentences of dated facts and the screenshots as attachments. That is the whole telegram impersonation email; a paragraph on how upsetting this has been only pushes the links further down a message an automated system reads first.

Two rows need a word. The support form asks for a description, "Your full legal name", an email and a phone number, and the FAQ says Telegram relies "on volunteers for support", so an impersonation complaint sent there reaches a helper, not a moderator.

For EU users the extra route is real but narrow: Telegram's Digital Services Act page names @EURegulation as the bot that "accepts communications from users as a single point of contact", and the form wants the content to be illegal, which for a copy of you depends on the law where you live. Copyright notices carry their own limits, set out in what a copyright notice can reach, and material that is illegal in itself has intakes listed under illegal content on Telegram.

What if the fake account says it is Telegram Support?

Then it is lying, and Telegram's FAQ says so in advance: "If anyone on Facebook or any other platform is telling you they're us, they are not." Inside the app the rule is just as short. Telegram's support desk is reached from Settings, then Ask a question, and is staffed by volunteers, and the FAQ adds: "Be careful, we don't have any other support accounts on any social media platforms." Login codes arrive in "the verified service notifications chat named 'Telegram' in your chat list", the FAQ continues, and "should never be shared with anyone". That chat belongs to the account Telegram's API documentation identifies as ID 777000. Anything else that asks for a code is a copy.

Telegram's authentication docs hold one more detail worth knowing: "Telegram's servers will automatically invalidate login codes if they are sent by the user to another Telegram chat." Report a fake support account the way you would any other copy, Fake Account from its profile, and add the words "poses as Telegram Support" to the comment. A telegram impersonation email, meaning a message landing in your mailbox that claims to be Telegram and asks you to confirm your account, gets the same answer, since Telegram delivers codes inside the app.

Official bodies are impersonated on Telegram too. In April 2025 the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center warned of more than 100 reports of scammers posing as the IC3 itself, some steering victims to a fake "Chief Director" on Telegram, and its 2026 follow-up states that "IC3 does not maintain a social media presence and does not investigate crimes or recover funds through Facebook, Telegram, or similar platforms." A copy that threatens to leak something unless you pay is extortion as well as impersonation, and the evidence for that sits in extortion and counterfeit cases.

Is impersonating someone on Telegram a crime?

In several places, yes, when the copy is meant to harm, threaten or defraud. That matters beyond the moral point, because illegality is what opens the EU notice route and a police report. Laws cited most often are listed below. Treat them as a starting point for a conversation with a lawyer or the police, not legal advice.

Two gaps are worth knowing about. The UK Home Office confirmed in a written answer of 15 September 2025 that "Identity theft is not a standalone criminal offence", while the Crown Prosecution Service notes that false social networking accounts "could amount to criminal offences under the Fraud Act 2006 if there was a financial gain." In the US, the FTC's impersonation rule has covered copies of government agencies and businesses since 1 April 2024, but the extension to individuals that the agency proposed in February 2024 had not been finalised when we checked this month, so a private person copied on Telegram falls back on state law. For money lost, file with IC3 in the US or Report Fraud in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and quote the reference number in your next Telegram report. A copy used to harass rather than to steal is covered under reporting abuse and the person behind it, and a fake sexual image of you under deepfake bots and channels.

What happens after the report, and why a copy can outlast it

Often a label comes before any removal. Telegram's API documents a fake flag set when a user "was reported by many users as a fake or scam user: be careful when interacting with them", and its EU page says impersonating accounts "may be marked with a FAKE or SCAM label, which will be displayed on their public Telegram profile." The copy stays up with a warning on it, which protects the next person it writes to and is a genuine result, though not the one you asked for. Removal comes if a moderator confirms the breach, and Telegram tells the reporter neither way.

Nobody outside Telegram knows how many fake accounts it removes. Telegram's safety page counted 26,254,529 groups and channels blocked in 2026 when we read it on 23 September, but it publishes no figure for accounts taken down for impersonation, and no timeline for a single report. The waiting can be long. Writer Jessica Rose, warning her readers about a fake Telegram account in her name in February 2023, recorded that she had reported it with the "Fake Account" option "more times than I can count" and had "written 4 separate emails to [email protected] and to [email protected], but to no avail." Her case is not unusual. When we ran someone is impersonating me on telegram reddit on 23 September 2026, not one reddit.com link came back; the results were newsletters, personal pages and exchange help articles, some written by people who had been copied themselves.

Three things move a stalled case. Evidence that did not exist at the first filing, especially a new victim's screenshot. A reference number from a police or IC3 report. And reports from people the copy actually contacted, each describing their own conversation. Getting strangers to mass-report the account is the opposite of that last one. Telegram's documents tie report volume to a label and leave removal to a moderator reading evidence, so recruits add noise rather than proof, which is the argument laid out in the report-count myth. If the copy is spraying your contacts with the same pitch, the controls for that are in Telegram's spam tools. Copies also come back under a new handle. Keep the account ID and the old link, and open the next report with them.

What Telegram Ban Service does with an impersonation case

We start from what a copy cannot fake. For each case we record the fake's handle, link and, where it can be read, its account ID, and we ask the client for their real handle plus one screenshot of the stranger info page from someone the copy contacted. The comment we file is a single line a moderator can check in under a minute: which account is real, which dates give the copy away, what it asked for and from whom. We file the Fake Account report on the profile, the messages that show the deception, the @notoscam message on the client's behalf where the client is the person being copied, and the email when the copy is posting anything illegal. Where money has moved, the police or IC3 report runs in parallel.

Telegram Ban Service files and escalates; Telegram's moderators decide. We take genuine impersonation cases only, never a lookalike that is simply a different person with a similar name, and we refuse coordinated volume reporting; the bots and panels that sell it are a scam of their own, as what paid report bots actually do shows. The same desk handles related jobs: the takedown route for each violation, and the difference between a group admin removing a copy from your own chat and Telegram removing it everywhere, which admin bans versus platform bans explains.

Do it in this order: screenshot the info page, file Fake Account with a one-line comment, message @notoscam if the copy is you, and email [email protected] if it is posting anything illegal. If it is still messaging people a week later, send us the handle with what you have collected.

Sources

• Telegram API, inputReportReasonFake: "Report for impersonation" (retrieved 23 September 2026)
• Telegram API, peerSettings: registration_month, phone_country, name_change_date, photo_change_date
• Telegram blog, 7 March 2025: Know Who's Messaging You with Contact Confirmation
• Telegram FAQ: usernames, @NoToScam, [email protected], report gestures, login codes
• Telegram verification page: user accounts are not verified; third-party icons
• Telegram EU Digital Services Act page: FAKE and SCAM labels, @EURegulation
• Telegram safety: 26,254,529 groups and channels blocked in 2026 (retrieved 23 September 2026)
• FTC, June 2026: $3.5 billion reported lost to imposter scams in 2025
• Chainalysis, January 2026: impersonation scams up more than 1,400%
• FBI IC3 public service announcement, April 2025: IC3 impersonation scams
• California Penal Code §528.5
• New York Penal Law §190.25
• UK Parliament written answer 72630, 15 September 2025
• Jessica Rose, 6 February 2023: Fake Telegram account - please unsubscribe

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