New Delhi, Feb. 5 -- Fake brand managers, false deals, access to private data, and all hell breaks loose. Common enough modus operandi of scamsters, but the twist is that they are now beginning to target influencers, exploiting their desperation to cut brand deals and maintain their public image and popularity on social media. Such influencers are easy prey for swindlers, given their contact details are publicly available so brands can easily connect with them.

Take Simran Malhotra, a travel and fitness influencer with 656,000 followers on her Instagram handle @malhotra_simran. In two reels last month, she gave a detailed account of how she was approached by a fraudster who pretended to be an influencer marketing agent representing appar...