Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made his support of Bitcoin clear, though he’s also been known to be hacked and impersonated from time to time, with a recent victim, Sebastian, losing over £400,000 ($555,572 USD) to a scammer.
How it works is scammers will steal verified Twitter accounts and try to mimic the profile and text of Elon Musk. Bots will auto-reply to Musk’s tweets, and users checking out the first replies always see Bitcoin ‘deals’, which are usually scams.
After Musk tweeted the phrase “Dojo 4 Doge,” back in February, a scammer pretending to be Musk posted a link to a “special event,” where “everyone gets a fair chance,” reports BBC.
Dojo 4 Doge
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 21, 2021
When following the link, the site included a timer counting down, promising users that they could double their money if they sent between 0.1 Bitcoin and 20 Bitcoin – worth nearly £860,000. Sebastian chose to give 10 Bitcoin, and sat refreshing the page waiting for his newly-doubled Bitcoin to deposit into his wallet.
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"I threw my head on to the sofa cushions and my heart was beating so hard. I thought I'd just thrown away the gamechanger for my family, my early retirement fund and all the upcoming holidays with my kids." #Giveaway #Bitcoin #IOTAhttps://t.co/ZedrZmvmNI— IOTΛ? (@IOTAcurrency) March 16, 2021
While analysts managed to track the Bitcoin as it was transferred, it wasn’t long before the money was anonymously withdrawn, before being gone forever.
Sebastian, who lives in Cologne, Germany and asked for an alias to be used, said he realized the opportunity was fake when he watched the timer hit zero. He went on to tell BBC that he didn’t sleep that night, and instead spent hours trying to contact the scammer.
According to Sebastien, “I went upstairs and sat on the edge of the bed to tell my wife. I woke her up and told her that I’d made a big mistake, a really big mistake.”
He says he’s not new to the internet or technology, but he got “greedy” that night. “I have studied and have a good marketing job in the IT Industry. I live together with my wife and two children and we have a nice house with a garden. I was greedy that night and it made me blind,” he told the BBC.
Contributing Writer at TeslaNorth.com from California’s southeast Bay Area. Covers electric vehicles, space exploration, and all things tech. Loves a good cup of coffee (click here to buy us a coffee), live music and puppies. Buying a Tesla? Click here to get 1,000 free Supercharging miles.