Twitch scammers are impersonating s1mple after CSGO pro’s ban

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive professional player Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev is currently banned on Twitch, but that hasn’t stopped impersonators trying to take advantage of his fanbase with scam streams.

S1mple is one of Counter-Strike’s most accomplished pro players, highly regarded for his incredible mechanics in-game. While he’s a good player, he’s also a great personality, fooling around at tournament and at home on stream.

However, he’s been taken offline for the time being after being banned on Twitch in November. S1mple labelled the ban “a joke” and asked for Twitch to remove his partnership, with the intention of stopping streaming on the platform.

While he’s off the platform for now, scammers are taking advantage of the Ukrainian’s misfortune by hosting streams in the player’s name and trying to exploit his fans. Streams have popped up in the CS:GO category on Twitch showing s1mple’s videos with a more nefarious intent.

They run with names similar to the CSGO pro player’s handle to try and give it a more authentic look. However, the scam is incredibly obvious with bright banners bordering the stream telling viewers about an upcoming $10,000 skin giveaway.

• Read more: Trainwrecks loses it after near-perfect CS:GO case prediction

If players follow the links in these streams, they will be directed to log into their Steam accounts on a look-alike site, and expose their account details.

With access to the player’s accounts, scammers can trade away skins to their own accounts and make profit with the stolen cosmetics.

While streams are being taken down when Twitch are alerted, the scammers start again on a new account and boost themselves right back to the top of the category with view bots.

• Read more: Why was s1mple banned on Twitch again?

S1mple is aware of the issue, tweeting out on December 3 asking Twitch to take action against the accounts.

“I see my live fake profiles on Twitch scamming people everyday,” he said. “Isn’t it your responsibility to protect your own people?”

Twitch scammers often impersonate popular personalities to try and take advantage of their fanbase and make a quick buck. Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek has had to deal with his fair share of impersonators on Twitch since moving to Mixer, but shared that there’s not much he can do.

The best thing Twitch users can do when they see a scammer impersonating a popular account is to report the stream so that it’s brought to the platform’s attention and can be taken down quickly.