Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, has called on users to report scam incidents directly to him — to help speed up the blocking of fraudsters on the platform.
Users can contact Durov personally via direct messages on his Telegram channel. However, there’s a fee: each message costs 5,000 Telegram Stars, which amounts to roughly 4,500 rubles (approximately $50 USD).
“I can’t disable paid messages,” Durov explained, “because otherwise I would receive thousands of messages per minute — it would be physically impossible to read or respond.”
For those who prefer not to pay, Durov recommends using Telegram’s official scam-reporting bot @notoscam. He emphasized that users should include the hashtag #blackmail in their message to ensure it reaches the appropriate staff member for review.
The move highlights Telegram’s ongoing struggle to curb scam activity and fake accounts, which have proliferated in recent years amid the app’s soaring global user base. The combination of paid and free reporting options aims to balance accessibility with efficiency in processing reports.
