Bitcoin scammers are trying to cash in on Elon Musk’s “pedo” apology
Scammers on Twitter are capitalising on Elon Musk’s recent apology to try and get unwitting users to part with their cryptocurrencies, in exchange for (non-existent) cheap Tesla cars and free Bitcoin or Ethereum.
The scammers have accounts that closely imitate Musk’s own. They use the same profile picture, display name, and a very similar Twitter handle to convince users that their tweets are part of Musk’s original Twitter thread.
Musk’s apology tweet can be seen below.
As this well-written article suggests, my words were spoken in anger after Mr. Unsworth said several untruths & suggested I engage in a sexual act with the mini-sub, which had been built as an act of kindness & according to specifications from the dive team leader.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 18, 2018
Then scammers got involved.
We’re not going to embed the tweet in case someone accidentally clicks the link, so instead we’ve embedded a screenshot below.
Cryptocurrency scammers have consistently targeted Musk’s tweets with offers of free giveaways of Ethereum of Bitcoin. Presumably, their thinking is that a prominent technology figure is the kind of person who’d actually run a crypto-giveaway.
It’s got so bad that Musk himself has actually commented on the scammers. Speaking in a tweet, he queried who was running the scambots before praising their “mad skillz”.
Musk, of course, isn’t the only high-profile Twitter user to have had his tweets targeted. In the past a number of prominent games developers have seen scammers slide into their mentions to ‘apologise’ for server downtime with offers of free cryptocurrency giveaways.
But these scammers might not be around for much longer. After reaching a high of $19,000 back in December, the value of Bitcoin has now crashed to around $7,500. In response, many small- and medium-sized mining operations are exiting the market, and GPU prices are reaching normal levels once again.
Now we just have to hope that Twitter can come up with a way of blocking imitation accounts en masse in order to prevent scammers from piggybacking on the reputations of respected users.
What do you think it’ll take to stop the scambots? Get in touch with us @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.