Fake GPS data

Mohon dengan sangat kembalikan uang sayaa yang tiba tiba masuk aplikasi strava yang saya tidak ketahui

Hi ​@greencommuter,

While Strava doesn't recognize all cheating automatically, you can report cheaters or individual activities, here's some details: https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/206522304-How-to-Report-Cheating-on-Strava

You might also want to add your vote and/or feedback to this feature request: 

And here's some background on the latest about the auto-detection: 

https://stories.strava.com/articles/removing-cars-from-leaderboards

​@Dwi eri sandria 

google translate:

Please refund my money which suddenly entered the strava application without my knowledge.
 

You need to contact Strava Support, unfortunately we can't help you here at the Community Hub. Here’s the details: 

hi ​@Jana_S 

Well we can only report cheaters if there is a way to identify them

We are interested to know how to differentiate activities that are fake from activities that are real.

Does the strava mobile app perform any checks? For example:

• multi-space cloning
• use of multiple device sensors, not just GPS
• rooted device

etc.

As these could be good to pass through the API, so that apps can differentiate real from fake.

Our long term plan is actually develop our own Run, Walk, Cycle app instead of using Strava - but we would much prefer that Strava took genuine activities seriously.

Thanks

​@greencommuter what kind of checks does the Strava app do - well that's a good question (and I don't have an answer, note that this is a community hub - fellow users helping out each other). But my guess is that the check is rather done server-side, as Strava serves as an aggregator of data from countless apps that allow syncing to a Strava account, rather than recording directly with the Strava app. I’m not sure though whether Strava would be willing to publish the specifics, as that might actually serve as a checklist for the cheaters...

Anyway: if you’d like to request a specific functionality, you can submit an “idea” that other users can vote for - and hopefully it will get attention of the product managers at Strava.

As ​@Jana_S said, the Strava app doesn’t have much relevance for this topic. Maybe someone could trick the Strava app to record fake GPS data but that would be unnecessary complicated in comparison to all the other cheating options. The usual problem with recording the wrong activity type or even vehicle rides with the Strava app or any other app or device is way more problematic in this regard. There is some progress to detect that automatically but it will never be perfect.

The fake GPS is usually a file that is uploaded in the Strava web UI. If that file contains plausible data it’s indistinguishable from a real activity, there is nothing Strava can do in this case.

A reward app that doesn’t have channels outside of Strava to secure the legitimacy (like reliable witnesses or only allowing acquaintances where the chance exist that they can be seen when cheating) is always easy to exploit.

Detecting use of GPX files is pretty easy, the issue is that the Strava mobile apps dont use other sensors like accelerometer or Celluar GPS correlation, and as such apps like GPSJoystick that just sends a fake GPS stream will always work.

As such like i mentioned we’ll be moving our app off Strava, and develop our own activity recording app with such detection in place. Its a shame Strava dont take this seriously imho.

That’s a good idea if you have the vast knowledge and time to program that. Remember though that many if not most people usually don’t record with their smartphone and won’t be delighted to make duplicate recordings, one with your app and the other with their watches or head units. Besides that another app for recording will have impact on smartphones battery runtime and the quality of GPS reception is diminished i.e. for riders that have their phone in some bags.

This guy is faking his activities. I've tried flagging, reporting, and even submitting a support request, but nothing... it's very frustrating.
https://www.strava.com/athletes/107010366

activity 1: https://www.strava.com/activities/15312637614
activity 2: https://www.strava.com/activities/15296943510

I also have this girl, who's faking her activities. She's cloning old activities. I reported it once in the past, and nothing was done, and now she's doing the same thing again.

https://www.strava.com/athletes/24583134

activity (mai 2023): https://www.strava.com/activities/9053808194 
same activity (jul 2025):  https://www.strava.com/activities/15310403279 

activity (jul 2024): https://www.strava.com/activities/11971382704
same activity (jul 2025): https://www.strava.com/activities/14337046652

What's the point of having a reporting tool if no action is taken?