Hi, thanks as always for reading TechCrunch. We want to talk with you quickly about something important. A growing number of scammers are impersonating TechCrunch reporters, editors, and event leads and reaching out to companies, pretending to be our staff when they absolutely are not. (Here is a list of all of our actual staff.) These bad actors are using our name and reputation to try to dupe unsuspecting businesses. It drives us crazy and infuriates us on your behalf. Judging by the increased number of emails we’re receiving, asking, “Does this person really work for you?” it appears to be happening more actively at the moment. Anecdotally, this isn’t just happening to us; fraudsters are exploiting the trust that comes with established news brands to get their foot in the door with companies across the media industry. Here’s an example of the most common scheme we’ve been tracking: Impostors are impersonating our reporters to extract sensitive business information from unsuspecting targets.…