A fool and his bitcoin are soon parted.
Knowing that, enterprising hackers in recent days took over several “verified” accounts, tweaking their profiles to look like Elon Musk’s account. They then urged users to send a small amount of bitcoin BTCUSD, +0.39% in exchange for the promise of more bitcoin to be sent back.
The kicker: People fell for it. Really, guys?
Here’s an example of what the tweets looked like:
For an added layer of deception, the scammers would also use other “verified” accounts they hacked to claim that the offer was legit:
What the heck? These scams are getting worse by the day.
Now we have verified accounts of politicians that are used for this scam!Heads up!@FrankPallone @BrendaLLawrence
Do something!@Twitter @TwitterSafety @TwitterSupport @jack pic.twitter.com/SGRWyDHCau
— Euqinomist (@Euqinomist) November 5, 2018
One of the bitcoin wallets linked in the tweets has already received about $180,000 from those somehow buying into the scam. As you can see, the wallet below has collected 28 bitcoin, which is currently trading $6,435 each.
This may be the most successful attempt at duping Musk fans, but it’s not the first. A version of this scam popped up earlier this year, when accounts bearing the Tesla TSLA, +1.72% boss’s name and image just straight up asked for bitcoin.
This kind of nonsense eventually led to Musk actually getting blocked from his own Twitter account.
In response to the latest outbreak, Twitter TWTR, +1.00% explained to the BBC that it “substantially improved how we tackle cryptocurrency scams on the platform” and “user impressions have fallen by a multiple of 10 as we continue to invest in more proactive tools to detect spammy and malicious activity.”