Impersonators intentionally deceive consumers for various reasons, including entertainment, acceptance, and criminal gain. They may use face-to-face contact, telephone, mail, or the internet to gain access to personal information for identity theft. Consumers with higher aptitudes are often targeted, so it’s important to thoroughly check credentials before interacting with anyone.
An impersonator is an individual or company who intentionally misleads consumers into thinking they are someone else. In many cases, this farce is performed for entertainment purposes by actors within a television series or stage show. This type of deception is usually harmless, but a copycat could also have rather sinister motives. Others will take on the role of impersonators to be accepted, and these types of imposters change their identities to gain access to everything from country clubs to classified files. Criminals posing as impersonators often hope to gain access to wealth or information, and this tactic is very common through the mail and on the Internet.
The most common form of an impersonator is referred to as a “con.” This individual is usually very skilled in the art of deception and will use his talent to convince others that he is a representative of a political organization, financial institution, large corporation, or anything else he can think of to get the favor of his victim. Once a certain level of trust has been established, the scammer will casually make his true intentions known, often in the form of a problem or setback that he needs assistance with. In these situations, the victim will often volunteer assistance to remedy the situation, which is what the impersonator was trying to begin with.
Impersonators don’t always rely on face-to-face contact to fool their victims. In many situations, contact is made by telephone, mail, or on the Internet via an innocent-looking advertisement or letter of correspondence. The criminal’s intentions in these types of scenarios are to gain access to some type of personal information that can be used for a form of identity theft. While crimes such as stolen credit card numbers and banking information are common, some thieves will try to obtain a Social Security number to fully assume the victim’s identity. Once that happens, the criminal can buy houses, vehicles, stocks, or anything else they can think of using the victim’s lines of credit.
People often assume that a copycat is only after unintelligent victims, but studies show that consumers with higher aptitudes are often more sought-after targets. By far, the best way to avoid an impersonator is to thoroughly check their credentials via a third party source – many victims say they saw warning signs, but ignored them as they thought they were making an intelligent decision. It doesn’t matter whether the impersonator is posing as a policeman, an investor, or any other type of professional, a good habit for consumers is to avoid any type of interaction unless the person’s identity can be proven beyond dispute.
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