Bohdan Prylepa: scam sellers of Telegram ads and how to check a channel first

Bohdan Prylepa: where the scam enters a Telegram ad deal

Buying ads on Telegram works differently from buying them in a self-serve dashboard. Many placements are sold by hand: the advertiser finds a channel in a directory or a roundup, messages the ad manager, gets a price and pays. Telegram plays no part in that deal, so the two sides are the only ones checking who sells the post and whether the audience exists.

Bohdan Prylepa breaks the deal into five links, each with its own weak spot. At the search stage, the channel itself can be swapped for a copy. At first contact, the admin can be an impostor. The numbers can be inflated. The payee can be a stranger. After the post goes live, it can vanish an hour later. A scammer needs only one of those links.

The FTC's guide for small businesses names the pattern plainly: scammers try to fool companies into paying for nonexistent advertising or a listing in a phony directory. IC3 data for 2025 shows what it costs. Non-payment and non-delivery complaints reached 56,478 with reported losses of 503,373,587 dollars, and advance fee schemes added 7,762 complaints and 155,910,852 dollars.

Fake admins: the scam that sells someone else's channel

A subscriber sees a channel's name, picture and posts, and nothing about the people behind it. Telegram says the subscriber list is visible only to the owner and admins, and subscribers cannot see which accounts manage the channel. Admin signatures under posts are optional, and even when they are on, they show a display name with no link to a profile.

That gap feeds a common version of the scam. In a group where media buyers trade placements, someone appears as the ad manager of a popular channel, with a familiar name and the same profile picture. They offer a last-minute slot at a discount, send a rate card and stats, and ask for payment today because the slot will be gone tomorrow. Once the money lands, the chat is deleted or the account disappears.

A check mark next to that person's name means nothing. Under Telegram's verification rules, user accounts are not verified at this time, the official badge is reserved for large and active channels, groups and bots, and third-party verifiers use completely different icons. Bohdan Prylepa treats any badge in a private chat as profile decoration that proves nothing.

Cloned and hijacked channels: when the venue itself is fake

A clone copies the original's name, picture, description and recent posts, while its short address differs by one letter, an extra digit or an underscore. To an advertiser picking channels from a list, the copy looks convincing: same topic, same design, a slightly lower price. The money goes to the clone's owner, and the ad, if it runs at all, reaches a small and random audience.

A hijacked channel is harder to spot because it is real. The owner loses access, and the new holders sell ads under a name with years of history. The feed usually gives it away: a sudden change of topic, new contacts in the description, posts about quick profits that never appeared before. Bohdan Prylepa scrolls back several months before any deal and compares the ad contact in old posts with the one on offer now.

Official verification filters out part of the fakes. Telegram issues the blue badge to channels itself, through @VerifyBot, and a verified channel cannot change its name or short link without giving up the badge. For channels without one, the address found independently is the main defense.

Bohdan Prylepa on inflated audiences and padded views

Inflation is the quietest form of the scam. The seller stays in touch, the post goes live, views pile up and a report arrives. The readers are bots and empty accounts, so the advertiser sees zero clicks against thousands of views. Bohdan Prylepa treats any channel without a verifiable audience as inflated until the seller proves otherwise.

Telegram's own rules offer clues. An owner can personally add only the first 200 subscribers, and everyone after that arrives through links, search and promotion, so a jump of tens of thousands in two days needs an explanation. The view counter is approximate, includes views of forwarded copies and counts the same reader again after about four days. Perfectly even reach under every post is unusual for real people.

Channels with more than 500 subscribers get detailed statistics: growth, joins and leaves, muted notifications, the languages the audience speaks and where new followers came from. A US advertiser should check what share of the audience reads in English and whether follower spikes line up with the channel's own promotions.

Screenshots are close to worthless here, since anyone can edit them. A screen share on a video call, with the admin opening the statistics section and scrolling through three to six months of charts, tells you far more. Forwards and comment threads are worth a look too.

Growth packages and channel resale: scam formats Prylepa flags

Businesses that run their own channel get offered growth: followers by the thousand, a top spot in Telegram search, guaranteed reach. Payment comes first, the report is a screenshot and there is no contract. Within weeks part of those followers unsubscribe, the stats get distorted and real posts reach fewer people, because much of the audience reads nothing.

Buying a ready-made channel for a brand carries a similar risk. The seller shows the subscriber count and attractive view numbers, asks for payment to transfer ownership, and sometimes wants a login code or full access to an account for the handover. Telegram says its login codes arrive in an official service chat and should never be shared with anyone. The rule cuts both ways: never hand over your own code, and never ask for someone else's.

There is a transparent benchmark. On March 31, 2024, Telegram announced that on the Telegram Ad Platform advertisers choose the exact channels where an ad appears, ads run only in large public channels, and owners of channels with at least 1,000 subscribers receive half of the revenue. Bohdan Prylepa uses that option as a reference point: if a middleman charges far more and cannot say why, the difference is his margin.

How Bohdan Prylepa vets a channel before paying

Step one is finding the channel on your own. Take the link from the brand's website, older mentions in other channels or Telegram search, and compare the short address letter by letter with the one the seller sent. Step two is using only the ad contact listed in the channel description or a pinned post. If someone messaged you first, the conversation continues only after that comparison.

Step three proves control of the channel. Bohdan Prylepa sends the seller a word he has just made up and asks them to add it to the channel description or publish it as a post for ten minutes. A real owner does it quickly. A middleman without access stalls, cites channel rules and offers another screenshot.

Step four covers statistics and past advertising: a live screen share, several months of charts, links to sponsored posts from other brands. Message two or three of those advertisers and ask whether the placement worked. Step five puts every term in writing before payment: publication time, how long the post stays at the top, whether it gets pinned, when it can be deleted and how it is labeled.

Vetting the seller: business records, invoices and payment red flags

When a business sells the ads, Bohdan Prylepa asks for its legal name and looks it up in the business registry of the state where it is registered. A company that exists on paper, has a named owner and issues invoices leaves a trail you can follow later. A person who will only take money through an app, under a name that matches nothing in the chat, leaves none.

The FTC offers a simple first check: before doing business with a new company, search its name online together with the word scam or complaint. That search can surface other advertisers who already paid the same seller. The same guide warns that scammers often demand payment by wire transfer, cryptocurrency or gift cards, and says that anyone who insists on those methods is running a scam.

Bohdan Prylepa adds a sign of his own. A request to pay a third party, described as an assistant, a partner or the channel's accountant, is reason enough to pause the deal. The person who controls the channel should also be the one who gets paid.

Bohdan Prylepa's payment ladder for Telegram ads

Paying the full package upfront to an unknown channel turns the deal into a gamble. A ladder works better. The first post in a new channel is paid after it goes live, or with a small deposit. Later posts can be prepaid once the first one ran as agreed. Monthly packages are split into weekly installments.

A credit card adds a layer of protection. The FTC explains that under the Fair Credit Billing Act, a dispute over a charge for goods or services not delivered as agreed should reach the card issuer within 60 days after the first bill showing the error. A transfer through a payment app to a stranger offers no such route.

Bohdan Prylepa keeps ad spending on a separate card with a limit close to the monthly budget and an alert for every charge. A mistake with one seller then costs the price of one post, and the company's main account stays out of reach.

Proof that the sponsored post actually ran

Save the evidence the moment the post is published: the link, a screenshot with the date and time, and the view count after one day and after three. If the post is deleted early or goes out at a different time, you have grounds to ask for a refund or a repeat placement.

Open the link from a second account that is not an admin of anything. That shows whether ordinary subscribers can see the post at all. Bohdan Prylepa also checks whether the post appeared in the channel he paid for, since a clone can publish your ad to its own small audience and send you that link.

Keep the whole chat thread, the rate card and the payment receipt in one folder. If the deal turns out to be a scam, that folder becomes the core of every report you file.

If the scam already took your money: reporting in the US

Call your card issuer or payment provider first, explain that the payment went to a fraudulent seller and ask what dispute options apply. Save the full chat, the seller's profile with username, the channel link and the receipt.

Lodge a complaint at ic3.gov, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, with the payee details, dates and amounts. Report the seller to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and alert your state attorney general, as the FTC's small business guide recommends. Those reports help investigators link your case to other advertisers who paid the same account.

Inside Telegram, report the account and the channel from their profiles. If the seller was impersonating a real channel owner, Telegram asks owners to contact @NoToScam, so let the genuine admin know. The owner can then warn other buyers before the same impostor reaches them.

Bohdan Prylepa: a quick checklist for Telegram ad buyers

The channel was found on your own and the address matches letter by letter. The contact comes from the description. The seller published your test word. Stats were shown live, and past advertisers confirmed results. The seller has a business record and an invoice. Terms and labeling are in writing. The first post is paid after it runs, from a separate card.

The same approach works for agencies that buy ads on your behalf, and his guide to fraud red flags when hiring a marketing agency covers them in detail. Protecting your own ad accounts is the subject of his article on scam notices from ad platforms.

The author's background is described on the page about Bohdan Prylepa, and his newer pieces are collected on Bohdan Prylepa's website.