Fake Giveaway from Durov: Scammers have Stolen a Twitter Account to Pose as Telegram CEO
On April, 29, Pavel Durov announced there might be server problems on the Telegram network causing downtime for European users. Two hours later, scammers announced their giveaway having disguised it as Durov’s post.
Massive overheating in one of the Telegram server clusters may cause some connection issues for European users within the next couple of hours. Apologies for the inconvenience – the problem is being solved.
— Pavel Durov (@durov) 28 April 2018
We're really sorry that the incident took place.
— Pаvel Durov (@JBONAMASSA) 29 April 2018
We wanted to extend our apology by doing two promotions - for ETH and BTC.https://t.co/C2b3UgWNkW - visit to get Ethereum.https://t.co/7IwaxsRZHc - visit to get Bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/owqzIDgCOX
Thanks guys for your support!Now it's our time to gift you something!
— Pаvel Durov (@club8music) 29 April 2018
That's why i'm announcing promotion of 5000 ETH and 1000 BTC! https://t.co/FGc3yec5dl - visit to get free ETH! (5000 Ethereum) https://t.co/rm56f75H9H - visit to get free BTC! (1000 Bitcoin) pic.twitter.com/WED6W7btiZ
In order to do that, they hijacked the verified account of the
Club 8 music band. Their tweet contains links to websites which allegedly should give you 5000 ETH or 10000 BTC. However, as soon as one clicks the link, there is a request of sending a small amount of crypto to get a big prize (for ETH, its from 0.5 to 10).
According to Medium.com’s investigation, people have already sent over 500k USD in cryptocurrency to these fake accounts.
As we reported before, today scammers more often use almost identical usernames to those celebrities in the hopes of being accepted as real. Their posts have already been posted straight under verified updates from Elon Musk, John McAfee, 50 Cent, Vitalik Buterin, Charlie Lee, and major cryptocurrency companies, and even president of the US - Donald Trump.