An Elon Musk Twitter crypto scam cost one man over £400,000

A recent Twitter scam involving Elon Musk had life-changing consequences for one German man. Amid rising numbers of cryptocurrency scams spreading across the internet, this likely won’t be the last time scammers cash out on unsuspecting civilians. 

In an interview with the BBC, a German man by the alias Sebastian admitted that he had fallen for the scam. What the man initially believed to be a fantastic opportunity quickly became a heartbreaking falsity. 

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Image By: BBC

What was the Elon Musk Twitter scam?

Tesla’s newly self-appointed Technoking was recently bamboozled by crypto scammers. Last month, a scammer group altered a verified Twitter account to look sort of like Elon Musk’s account to trick fans. Accounts are noticeably different, the altered verified account has a different pet as well as spaced characters in the title name.

At a passing glance, the accounts do look similar;  scammers used this to their advantage. Under the original tweet, scammers tweeted but they have decided to hold a special event where fans could send cryptocurrency in return for double the amount. Anything from 0.1 Bitcoin (around £4,300) to 20 Bitcoin (£860,000) was requested.    

Sebastian fell for the scam. He “double-checked” the verification logo next to the original Musk tweet, but he never noticed the discrepancies. Firstly, he tried to decide whether to send five Bitcoin or his entire crypto wallet. 

“Take the maximum', I thought, this is definitely real, so I sent 10 Bitcoin,” he decided.

How bad was the scam? 

Sebastian’s 10 Bitcoin mistake cost the man approximately £407,000. Despite believing the Tesla CEO would be providing him with a gargantuan £800k in return, the man was left with nothing. Upon realising that it was all a scam, he tried contacting the scammers to get his virtual money back. He didn’t.

"I threw my head on to the sofa cushions and my heart was beating so hard,” Sebastian said. “I thought I'd just thrown away the gamechanger for my family, my early retirement fund and all the upcoming holidays with my kids.”

Analysts at Amsterdam’s Whale Alert have reported that the Bitcoin has already been anonymously cashed out. While the company have tried to get the police involved with the scam, nothing is being done about the situation.

“[I’m] normally not the biggest idiot in the whole world,” Sebastian claims. “I was greedy that night and it made me blind."

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