How to Make It Harder for Scammers to Impersonate You

Most people only think about impersonation after it has already happened. A few changes before that point make you a genuinely harder target.

The FTC reported that imposter scams were the most commonly reported fraud category in the United States for the ninth consecutive year in 2025. 

Americans lost $3.5 billion to people posing as banks, government agencies, family members, and tech support. That is a 20 percent increase from the year before.

These scams are also getting harder to spot. Scammers now use AI voice cloning, spoofed caller IDs, and personal data pulled from data broker sites to make their attempts convincing from the first second.

Reducing your risk is not about hiding. It is about cutting off the raw material they use to target you.

WHAT SCAMMERS ACTUALLY NEED TO IMPERSONATE YOU

To impersonate you convincingly, or to impersonate someone to you, a scammer needs basic information. Your name, address, phone number, the names of family members, which bank you use, where you work.

Almost all of that is on data broker sites right now. 

A scammer who finds your profile on a people-search site already knows enough to call your family claiming to be you in an emergency, or to call you pretending to be your bank and name your actual branch.

Deepfake fraud went from 0.1 percent of all fraud attempts in 2022 to 6.5 percent in 2025, a more than 2,000 percent increase according to an Identity Fraud Report. Scammers now need just three seconds of audio to clone a voice with an 85 percent accuracy rate.

The surprising thing about impersonation fraud is how little sophistication it requires at the start. The foundation is usually just a search on a people-finder site.

SIX THINGS THAT ACTUALLY REDUCE YOUR RISK

1.  Get your information off data broker sites

This is the highest-impact step. The less your phone number, address, employer, and family members' names appear publicly, the harder it is for anyone to build a convincing script around you. Run a free scan with PrivacyHawk to see exactly where your information is listed right now. If you want it removed, that is included on Premium and Platinum plans. 

2.  Set your social media accounts to private

Public profiles hand over source material. Your voice in videos, tagged photos showing family members, your employer listed in your bio. Setting accounts to private removes the easiest data a scammer can use.

3.  Set up a family code word

The grandparent scam works because a distressed voice on an unknown number is hard to dismiss. A pre-agreed code word, something only your immediate family knows, immediately exposes anyone calling who does not have it. Takes two minutes. Has stopped real fraud attempts.

4.  Never verify your identity to someone who called you

Legitimate banks and government agencies do not call you and then ask you to confirm who you are. If someone calls claiming to be your bank and wants your account number or the last four of your SSN, hang up. Call the number printed on the back of your card instead.

5.  Freeze your credit

Impersonation often ends with someone opening new accounts in your name. A credit freeze at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion stops that from happening even if a scammer has your full personal details. It is free, takes about ten minutes, and is fully reversible when you need to apply for credit.

6.  Keep a separate email for financial accounts

Most people use one email for everything. If that email is on a data broker site, it is also the login for your bank and investment accounts. A private email used only for financial accounts, never shared or listed anywhere, is much harder to find and target.

THE ONE THING THAT DOES NOT PROTECT YOU AS MUCH AS YOU THINK

Caller ID. Spoofing a legitimate phone number has been standard practice for scammers for years. A call showing your bank's actual number on your screen does not mean it is your bank.

Hang up and call back on a number you already trust. That single habit blocks more impersonation attempts than any app, setting, or filter.

That said, the habit only works once they have already called. Reducing what they know about you before that call ever happens is a different layer of protection entirely.

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