Post a video that gets some traction and wait a few hours. Somewhere in the comments, you will find them. "Congratulations, you have been selected for our giveaway, message this account to claim your prize." "Having trouble with your order? Contact our support team here." "I made fifteen thousand dollars last month thanks to this investment coach." Some of them even use your logo and a name that looks almost exactly like yours.
These are scam comments, and they are everywhere. Most business owners treat them as background noise and move on. But your customers do not see them as noise. They see them under your video, on your account, often looking like they came from you. And on the platforms you are not watching closely, those comments may be the only response a customer ever gets.
What These Comments Look Like
Scam comments come in a few common types. The fake giveaway is the biggest one. A copycat account with your name and photo replies to real commenters telling them they won something and need to send a message, click a link, or pay a small shipping fee. The fake support account is another. It replies to anyone who mentions a problem and offers to help through a private message.
Then there are the investment and crypto pitches, the "check my profile" bots, the fake job offers, and the accounts posting the same suspicious link under every video in sight. They change their wording constantly, but the goal never changes. Get your customers to leave the platform, click something, or send money.
Why Business Accounts Get Targeted
Scammers go where the trust is. When people comment on your video, they are already interested in your business. Some are asking questions. Some are asking about prices or availability. Some just had a bad experience and want help. Those are exactly the people a scammer wants to reach, because they are already expecting a reply from you.
Busier comment sections attract more of this. A video that starts gaining views draws more bots, because there are more real people reading the comments. The better your content performs, the bigger the target it becomes.
Customers Think The Scammer Is You
This is the part that hurts. A customer who gets a message from a fake account using your name does not always realize it is fake. If they lose money, or get a nasty phishing link, they may blame your business. Some will leave a bad review. Others will simply decide you are not trustworthy and quietly take their business elsewhere.
Even customers who spot the scam come away with a worse impression. A comment section full of bots and fake giveaways makes an account look abandoned. It suggests nobody is watching, which makes people wonder what else nobody is watching.
Unwatched Platforms Get Hit The Hardest
Most businesses keep a reasonably close eye on their main platform. They notice the junk under their Instagram posts and delete some of it. But the Facebook page they rarely open, the YouTube channel they post to once a month, the TikTok account they set up and forgot about, those comment sections fill up with scams for weeks before anyone looks.
A customer who finds you on one of those platforms walks right into it. They see a real question from another customer sitting unanswered for three weeks, and right below it, a fake account offering to help. Guess which one gets their message.
Turn On Every Filter You Are Given
Every major platform has tools for this, and most businesses never touch them. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube all let you filter comments that contain certain words, hide comments with links, and hold suspicious comments for review before they show up publicly.
Spend twenty minutes setting these up on each account. Add the words that keep showing up in scam comments on your posts, like "giveaway," "claim," "DM to win," "support team," and "investment." Turn on the strongest automatic spam filter each platform offers. You will not catch everything, but you will catch a lot of it before a customer ever sees it.
Hide, Report, And Block Fast
For the scams that get through, speed matters. The longer a fake comment sits under your video, the more people read it. Delete or hide it, report the account for impersonation or spam, and block it so it cannot come back under the same name.
If an account is impersonating your business directly, report it as impersonation, not just spam. Platforms tend to take impersonation reports more seriously, especially from the real account. Take a screenshot first in case you need to follow up.
Tell People How You Actually Reach Out
One of the simplest protections is telling your audience the truth in plain language. Put a line in your bio that says you never ask people to message another account, never run giveaways through private messages, and never ask for payment through comments. Pin a comment on popular posts that says the same.
When customers know how you really operate, scams become much easier for them to spot. A fake giveaway message looks obviously wrong when your bio says you never run them that way.
Answer The Real Questions First
Scammers thrive in the silence after a real customer asks something. Someone writes "do you do weekend appointments?" or "my order never showed up," and nobody from the business answers. That unanswered question is an open invitation. A fake support account slides in underneath with a helpful reply, and the customer takes the bait because it is the only response they got.
The best defense is simply getting there first. When a real person asks a question, reply from your real account as quickly as you can, ideally within the same day. A visible answer from you leaves no room for a fake one, and it shows everyone reading the thread that this business is paying attention.
Seven Platforms Need Seven Sets Of Eyes
Here is the honest problem. If you post on seven platforms, you have seven comment sections to watch. Most business owners can barely keep up with one. That is why the scams pile up on the accounts that get the least attention, and those accounts are often where new customers first find you.
The fix is making comment monitoring part of posting, not a separate chore you get to when you remember. Every time content goes out to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Rumble, and Reddit, someone should be checking what shows up underneath it. Answer the real questions, remove the scams, and keep every account looking like a real business is paying attention.
Active Accounts Make Scams Easier To Spot
There is one more benefit to posting consistently across every platform and keeping up with the comments. When your account is active, with real replies from you appearing regularly, customers learn what your voice looks like. They recognize your real account. A fake one using a slightly different name stands out immediately.
An account that only posts once in a while and never replies is the easiest one to impersonate, because customers have nothing real to compare it to. Show up everywhere, answer people quickly, and you make it much harder for anyone else to pretend to be you.
