The hook – fake jobs

Scammers reproduced our brand assets to lure victims with fake job offers.

To appear legit they cloned our brand on popular platforms like Instagram and Telegram. Victims were promised flexible work, quick hiring and easy money.

At some point, the interaction shifts and the scammers request upfront payments for training or kits.

As a small business we lack the resources to deeply investigate scams. But the pattern was clear enough to act.

First aid  

Our initial response focused on harm reduction.

We post notifications on our website that scammers are faking our brand assets.

We do not engage personally with purported victims because, sadly, they could also be scammers. It’s difficult to be sure without spending time verifying an emailer’s identity.

We report scammers to the social media platform involved, when reporting channels exist. We also report them to their web hosting service and domain authority. But these platforms are actually one source of the problem. 

Eventually the scam website that copied our brand was taken down. We’re not sure if it was the website host or domain registrar (or both) that responded to our complaint.

Engineered to inspire confidence, tricksters

The big platforms, hosting companies and domain registrars do not inspire confidence. They all make money selling resources to scammers.

YouTube, Facebook, X, Zoom, WhatsApp and Telegram are all in various stages of platform enshittification. They have little incentive to improve. Fraud creates engagement. Engagement creates revenue.

The egregious blue tick of X even monetises the illusion of trust. Anyone can buy a blue tick.

For brands, this creates a dangerous environment where familiarity is mistaken for legitimacy. 

The safest way forward is to build your digital brand on the only platform you can really trust. Your own.

The safest way forward is to build your digital brand on the only platform you can really trust. Your own.

Why your domain matters

Somewhere in every scam there is a point where the scammer engages with their victim to steal from them. Online, that point is attached to a domain name.

Platform domains often host scams. Your legitimate domain does not. At least we hope not.

It’s genuinely difficult for scammers to fake your host domain name. They can copy your logo, your tone of voice and your imagery. They cannot replicate your exact domain name.

Your main domain name is not just a technical asset. It is a trust asset. Develop it wisely.

The future is more sceptical

People will only become more suspicious of platforms if they do not change. There is little indication that they will.

Unless they change, platform domains will increasingly be seen as scam signposts rather than trust signals.

Platforms still have value. But their role should be to attract attention and drive traffic back to content hosted on your site, not to act as the primary location of your brand.

Shift from outsourcing brand building to platforms, towards deliberately building it yourself.

What brands should do now

Treat your domain as a core brand asset, not just a technical necessity.

Make your legitimate domain highly visible in all communications.

Use platforms tactically. Ensure calls-to-action go to your domain assets and not to a platform. Steer any campaign traffic from platforms to your website.

Educate stakeholders that anything important will always take place on, or link back to, your official domain..

Design your digital brand so trust is anchored in what you own – your official website.