Hey, I just wanted to inform you guys that it appears I have a Twitter impersonator using my content and my name. This is them https://twitter.com/ChumpLady1
If you’re following this person — I’d appreciate it if you didn’t, because it’s not me and I don’t have any say so over their content — although they’ve been posting my artwork and content.
For the record — my site and my artwork are federally copyrighted with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, so I take copyright infringement seriously.
Also consider that I’m married to a great trial attorney, so fuck with me at your peril.
Clearly, I need to beef up my copyright notices here. Getting on that ASAP.
Grrr.
Holy shit, how bizarre and unoriginal. Given that I got a notification from twitter the other day stating that CL followed me on twitter, I wonder if it was her (him?)
I was flattered there for a minute.
No, if you retweet me, that’s probably me. This person is following a lot of people — gee Thanks a Fucking LOT.
The imposter (and looking at their site, while it is a copy of CL there’s still something about it that’s a bit off center.
Anyway, having the imposter follow Cl’s followers is vaguely stalker like.
Make an example of them CL.
what the hell. stupid person. Go get ’em Mr. Tracey.
Damn. Well I just followed from this site so I think I’ve got the real deal. Now go get ’em, CL, the original.
Phew, just checked, I’m not following that pitiful imposter. I hope cease and desist or whatever the lawyers recommend is going to stop this nonsense. I mean, what was he thinking, to get 2M followers and a book deal?
Go for the throat CL, you’re not a chump you’re a CHAMP.
Take this idiot to the cleaners.
Can we all go beat her up and out her for blog stealing? Leave it alone is better I guess.
You can post on her feed and call her an imposter.
I’m there. I hate imposters.
Thanks.
Just call the person out as a CHEATER because this person is a liar. Tell them to get a life…of their own!
…what if it’s a guy?….
Doesn’t matter.
Tell me how tell me how tell me how and I will!
Just what the Chump Nation needs, more deceit. Not good for you, CL, but not good for us sincerely hurting people who are trying to benefit from your work.
You’ve worked too long and too hard – and you’ve given great credibility to a movement that recognizes that a pendulum is swingin back to the moral way of behaving – so good for you for calling this out and going after yet again more creeps. : )
Let us have at ’em Tracy, nobody screws with our CL! Actually even better than a horde of angry chumps, you ARE married to a kick-ass trial attorney, let him loose on them!!
Have you taken the issue up with Twitter?
Twitter is idiots, imho. Trying to take anything up with them gets you nowhere. Just my experience… Plus I misspelt our fearless leader’s name, up above. Mea Culpa. Sorry.
Yes I have. They seem to take it seriously if you have a federal copyright number, which I do.
on a relevant note, every so often (often enough), a celebrity complaints on twitter that there are multiple impostor accounts for them, so it’s the nature of the beast for the well known. Time to get verified?
Yeah, how do I do that? How do I get a blue check? Twitter wrote back and I just uploaded my ID and my trademark papers — so I hope they pull that person down ASAP.
It’s truly galling. They’re dispensing advice as me, and have some rather prominent twitter followers who think it’s me. UGH. My guess is this person is the UK judging by who follows them and who they follow.
Alot of internet scammers go out of country because it makes it harder to trace their identity. They are called “sock puppets” and create fake IP addresses. The cleanest way is to get their account shut down.
Are they are of their fricken mind? If you hadn’t posted the heads up I would have no idea this was not you. And there are articles from the Huffington Post, and your artwork IS THIS PERSON INSANE
SUE THIS PERSON
WHAT A IDIOT
SUE THEM
FUCK THEM
It doesn’t surprise me. In this age where social media has become common place, there are those that will abuse it. But thanks to this site, I know why. They feel entitled. Good luck Tracy!!
Crazy isn’t it? I don’t do social media anymore. Too much drama there.
To steal from CL is going to be a mistake for this “entitled” ass.
Go get ’em Chump Lady.
There’s so much trouble with stealing work online. Many of my photographer friends have a terrible time with it, even when it’s clear their images are copyrighted. Anyway, glad you found the imposter and will be taking legal action against them. Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.
Wow- that’s incredibly blatant. Not to mention stoopid.
It’s kind of weird; it’s you but it isn’t you. The dead give-away was use of the word “hubby”. Does Chump Lady use the word “hubby”?
Never.
That’s a relief. I hate that word.
Argh. Intellectual theft sucks. But this might cheer you up- Here’s a good one from an ancient library (reputedly)
‘For him that stealeth a Book from this Library, let it change to a Serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with Palsy, and all his Members blasted. Let him languish in Pain, crying aloud for Mercy and let there be no surcease to his Agony till he sink to Dissolution. Let Book-worms gnaw his Entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final Punishment let the Flames of Hell consume him for ever and aye.’
Give em Hell, CL!
Awesome curse, Meh-phista, thanks! Go get ’em, Chump Lady. Plagiarists are Word Cheaters, and they too SUCK!
You can see the @ replies that people have tweeted to someone by searching in ‘tweets’ (not ‘users’) for @ChumpLady1.
Just in case you’d like to see who’s tweeted to that person. 😉
Is she only on twitter or does she have a blog? I don’t have a twitter account-yet. Not meh enough toward the incessantly twitting OW and company. If anyone can provide another link I’d love to put this CHEAT’s audience on fraud alert.
The link she provides is to this site. No identifying details as to who this person really is.
I assume it’s a she, could be a he.
Thanks for the heads up, I have blocked the user on Twitter.
God bless Twitter. As soon as I sent them my ID and my copyright papers, they IMMEDIATELY took it down. Yea!!!!
Excellent!
Thank goodness.
Damn!
I was just fixing to suggest someone tweet the “C” word on the bogus blog! You know… Just to see some Naugahyde response. I wonder how far they would take their act?
🙂
I’m not hip to Twitter; I don’t even have an account. But I was just trying to figure out why they’d create an account as you. What’s in it for them? Maybe to communicate with some chumplings? Eh . . . I don’t really know how Twitter works.
I think if my X’s crazy AP knew I was on this site, she’d be commenting daily. Apparently she’s jealous and has trust issues. (snicker)
I have no idea what’s in it for them. I think they were just trying my persona on for size. Giving advice, linking to my articles. Maybe they thought they were doing me a favor. Or it’s a kind of stalking. I have no idea, but it totally creeped me out. And pissed me off. Only sorry I didn’t discover it sooner. I need to get more hip to social media.
Stalker scumbag THIEF !!! I have friends that like to ,,,,,, ,, ,, ,,, ,, ,, lets just say kick a lil ass 🙂 Let me know if you need help in giving a smart phone/ i pad enema to the creep 😉
And yea Twitter is pretty good like that. I follow your twitter and did not get anything other than your warning thanks 🙂 Have a great weekend all !!
CL,
This is what I get, whatever you did seems to be working:
Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!
Thanks for noticing—we’re going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon.
Oh, an hour late and a dollar short, just read above. Awesome! Great to know.
Yeah, the twitter account is still up there but she changed her name. They didn’t take down her page, they just removed my name and my artwork from it. If you search @chumplady it pops up still, however.
But I’ll take what I can get. I’m glad it’s resolved and I don’t have to sue anyone.
…everything except the ‘thanks for noticing, we’re going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon…?’ At least it no longer exists. So we should copyright blogs? I do wonder about this. These days Google usually finishes my thoughts before I’ve finished thinking them. But if I ever find any, I’d like to claim my intellectual property.
just making sure, I just found it–she/he is using your actual, cartoon image and the exact wording you do on your site?
No, they removed my artwork, my name, and my url. However, most of her tweets are links to here or things I have written.
I can live with that. Although she’s still passing off my writing as her original tweets. WTFever.
the tweet link I saw had your caricature and slogan with your tweets below that, telling her to stop before she gets sued.
ack. Sorry, I didn’t mean to add all that content.
No worries — those tweets were mine. My handle is @chumplady
If you search “Chump Lady” you get my impostor in the search results too.