Guides

Fake Telegram support and look-alike accounts

The most common Telegram scam is not a hack. Someone pretends to be support, a wallet, an exchange or a well-known person, and asks you to do the dangerous part yourself.

How the scam works

1. You post a question in a public group, or you simply have a wallet or exchange account.
2. An account with a name like “Wallet Support” or “Tonkeeper Help” messages you first, offering to fix the problem.
3. It sends you to a link or a bot, asks you to “verify” or “sync” your wallet, or asks for your recovery phrase.
4. Whatever you enter or connect is used to empty the wallet.

Signs of a fake

• It contacted you first. Real support teams answer requests you made; they do not search groups for people with problems.
• The handle is almost right. Look-alikes swap a letter for a digit (te1egram), double or drop a letter, or add words like “support”, “official” or “help” to a real name.
• It is a bot named after a person or brand. A bot called after a real account is not that account.
• The profile text promises something. Airdrops, doubling, “verify your wallet to claim” and urgent deadlines are the usual wording.
• It wants you to connect a wallet, sign something or share a phrase. No legitimate support needs any of these to help you.

How to confirm an account is genuine

• Find the account from the organisation's own website or its pinned announcement, not from a message or a search result in Telegram.
• Official accounts of large organisations usually carry Telegram's verification badge. Its absence does not prove a fake, and its presence is worth checking against the organisation's website.
• Check the exact spelling of the handle, letter by letter, against the one on the official site.
• Be careful with groups that look official. Anyone can create a group with a familiar name.

Where Plumbline fits

Send Plumbline a handle (@name) or a t.me link and it compares the name with accounts scammers imitate, reads the public profile text for scam wording, and says what it could and could not confirm. It will tell you when it cannot vouch for an account. It cannot tell you that an account is trustworthy, only what looks wrong.