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Golf influencer Paige Spiranac has opened up as she described her impersonator ordeal (Image: Getty)
Golf influencer Paige Spiranac has hit out at impersonators as she warned her followers against interacting with accounts purporting to be her on social media. The internet personality admitted that she had found it "scary" to learn that scammers had been using her name and image while claiming to be her online.
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The former professional golfer has amassed a significant following on various websites in recent years, boasting four million followers on Instagram and 1.6 million followers on TikTok. She also established a website entitled OnlyPaige, which provides her enthusiasts withgolf instructional videos, livestreams, and vlogs via a subscription service.
After experiencing a whirlwind rise to worldwide prominence, Spiranac appeared in both the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition and Golf Digest publications. However, the viral superstar hailing from Wheat Ridge, Colorado has admitted that fame does come with its downsides too.
Taking to Twitter/X, her unrest was clear as she opened up on her ordeal after learning that an impersonator had used an image of her from two years ago and photoshopped a message on the picture. She informed her one million followers: "Someone sent me this picture that some impersonator sent them. This is honestly so scary!"
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The internet sensation Paige Spiranac spoke openly about the ordeal (Image: Getty)
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"They took a screenshot of a video I did a couple years ago holding a head cover and photoshopped a sign in. PSA do not talk to anyone claiming to be me! I’m not on any chat apps. I will only ever respond from my verified social media accounts and my passes account. Please report and block anyone claiming to be me!"
Previously, the 31-year-old issued a guide to her followers after separate reports of fake accounts interacting with social media users purporting to be her. She said: "Is the message coming from my verified account? If so, it is me. Is the message coming from an account under my name that has zero followers, it is not me, that is a fake account.
"If this person insists on talking to you on WhatsApp or Google Hangouts, it’s not me," the influencer continued, as she clamped down on the impersonators. "If they show you a badly Photoshopped passport, driver’s license, or an old picture off of my Instagram to prove that it’s me, it’s not me."
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Speaking before on the “Playing A Round” podcast, Spiranac also recounted encounters with individuals who had been scammed by fake accounts using her name and image. She recalled: "There was some guy… and he comes up and asks me for a picture, it’s fine at first. And then, he goes into how I scammed him out of $10,000 and he started threatening me. It was a really really scary situation.
"As it turns out, this man was scammed by a fake profile that someone created and it had a fake number, he was unhinged, she said, remembering her horror. "It was a very scary situation, and luckily I had my team there, so I called my agent over and he was trying to handle it."
She added: "I’ve been dealing with these security issues for a while and they have been increasingly worse in the last couple of months, where these men are getting scammed by these fake profiles, fake numbers, meeting on Google hangouts, whatever you can think of, it’s happening.
"And then they come and find me or reach out to me and they’re very hostile, very angry because they’ve been scammed out of lots of money, or they think we were in a relationship and I had ghosted them."
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