Cover Image Courtesy: Intel Extreme Masters | Thumbnail Image Courtesy: DreamHack



While Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev might be currently absent from Twitch due to a recent ban imposed upon him for using a word that was against the platforms guidelines, his presence is still being maintained by multiple Twitch scammers, who are running scam streams by impersonating the star rifler and taking advantage of his fanbase.

The scam streamers quickly boost their accounts using view bots and reach the top of the category section. These streamers host a stream using the player’s name, which might not be identical but at the same time is very similar to the original, making the stream a bit more believable.



These scam streams run s1mple’s videos with big bright banners on them, advertising giveaways of various sorts to lure users into clicking them. This redirects the users to a lookalike steam website, where the account details put in by the user are stolen and the scammer gets access to their steam account.





Once inside, the scammers quickly transfer the user’s inventory to their own account, and later sell or trade these items to make a profit off the stolen cosmetics.

S1mple has himself taken to Twitter to report about the situation, where he is seen putting up a question for Twitch, asking them “Isn’t it your responsibility to protect your own people?”





While Twitch is doing its part by taking down these scam streams as and when they are reported, new accounts are being made almost immediately and the cycle repeats.



This is not the first time that this is happening as Twitch scammers usually do impersonate famous streamers, Michael “shroud” Grzesiek since moving to Mixer had to deal with multiple such situations where a scammer was selling skins on Twitch by impersonating to be him.





The best solution to avoid such streams from being run on the platform is that any user who comes across them should immediately report it, so Twitch can take swift action by taking them down.