On July 6, 2026, Rituals used its own Instagram account to warn customers about fraudulent accounts impersonating the brand and its employees. Cosmetics Business reported that the fake accounts were contacting people about collaborations and promoting offers and discounts unaffiliated with the company, while using its branding and logo. In its post, Rituals confirmed it does not reach out via Instagram DM, and that official communication comes only through verified channels.
The behavior behind that post is well documented. FTC data published in April 2026 shows that in 2025, nearly 30% of people who reported losing money to a scam said it started on social media, with reported losses reaching $2.1 billion, about eight times the 2020 figure. Those are consumer losses, but the reputational cost lands on the brand whose name was used.
Why this matters now
Rituals handled it well, and the cost was still real. The brand spent owned reach on a fraud notice rather than on product, put its social and customer care teams into reactive mode, and had to reassure a community that had already been approached.
There is a second cost that is easy to miss. When fake collaboration requests circulate, genuine partnership outreach becomes harder. Creators learn to treat brand DMs as suspicious, which slows legitimate influencer and affiliate activity. That effect sharpens around launches, when attention attracts imitators.
What is social media impersonation?
Social media impersonation is the use of a brand's name, handle, logo, profile imagery, or employee identity on accounts the brand does not own or control, presented so that customers take them as official.
Not every unofficial account is fraud, and the distinction matters because the response differs:
Impersonation accounts. Built to look official and extract money, data, or engagement. The Rituals case sits here.
Employee impersonation. A named individual's identity is copied, usually for collaboration or recruitment approaches. This often falls outside brand handle monitoring entirely.
Fan and community accounts. No deceptive intent, but they can blur the line between official and unofficial presence.
Legacy and regional accounts. Created by former agencies, franchisees, or country teams, now dormant but still live, and indistinguishable to a customer searching the brand name.
Treating all four as takedown candidates wastes effort. Treating none of them as a risk leaves the surface open.
How brands can respond
The practical answer is a repeatable workflow rather than a one-off sweep, and it follows the same shape as any social media brand protection program.
Audit. Build an account registry: every account carrying the brand name or a close variant, across every platform, with an owner and a verification status recorded against it. Handles Audit helps teams establish that baseline.
Classify. Sort what the audit finds against the categories above, so each account has a route rather than a label.
Evidence. Platform review depends on the quality of what you submit. Handle variants, timestamps, message screenshots, logo use, and trademark ownership belong in a single evidence pack, not scattered across inboxes.
Remediate. The route depends on the case. IP Integrity covers trademark enforcement and takedown management where infringement is clear. Where a variant handle is held by a third party without bad faith, social acquisition or consolidation may be the more realistic option.
Monitor. Impersonators return, often with a near-identical handle. Radar supports continuous detection of new variants and repeat-offender tracking, so the same case does not have to be rebuilt from scratch. Governance keeps access and internal policy in step as teams and agencies change.
One further step is worth copying directly from Rituals: publish your official channels and state plainly how you do and do not contact people. A clear public reference point gives customers, creators, and your own team something to check against, and it costs nothing to maintain.
How we can help
Impersonation cannot be eliminated, and no platform process guarantees an outcome. What a brand can control is how quickly it sees a fake account, how well it evidences the case, and how consistently it pursues remediation where policy allows. The 2026 handles Trust Index analyzed 2,593,152 social media handles across leading global brands, and the pattern is consistent: exposure is rarely one fake account, it is an unmapped estate.
Handles helps brands govern, secure, and optimize their social media presence by creating a clear source of truth for official accounts, handle ownership, impersonation risk, and platform remediation. That control layer is the difference between reacting to an impersonation wave and knowing, at any point, which accounts are official and which require action.
Speak to the team about mapping your social estate.
