If there is impersonation in my name, remember this: No gift cards, only a Nobel Prize!

🚨A few people have informed me that someone is impersonating me on WhatsApp from a USA number and asking for gift vouchers 💵.

Please note. This is not me. I will never ask for money, gift cards, vouchers, or favours on WhatsApp or any other channel. If I ever ask for anything, it will only be a Nobel Prize Medal 🎖️. Not gift cards.

If you receive such a message in my name, please ignore it and report the number as spam.

If you are in India, please report the number and the message to the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal. If you are in the USA, please report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Thank you to those who flagged this and for staying cautious.

Below is the actual chat between the fraudster and one of my contacts. The scammer succeeded in extracting an INR 10,000 Amazon voucher. The fraud was realised only when the same request was repeated a second time.

Below is the WhatsApp display profile being used by the impersonator, showing my photograph and name against a fraudulent number.

A similar impersonation attempt occurred about a year ago involving one of my team members. Fortunately, no loss was incurred then. I had documented that incident in detail in an earlier blog post.