crime
Suspected fraud – Facebook verified “Elon Musk”
The real Tesla boss: Elon Musk. Photo: Patrick Pleul / dpa-Zentralbild / POOL / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The scam on the Internet is not new: Criminals steal the identity of a celebrity and try to have crypto money transferred to them.
Facebook has wrongly verified a suspected Bitcoin fraudster as Tesla boss Elon Musk.
The “ElonMuskoffici” account had a white confirmation tick on a blue background; it was actually a Facebook fan page from Egypt, as the US tech portal “The Verge” reported. The page, which was still online on Tuesday morning, was blocked by Facebook on Tuesday lunchtime.
The actual operators of the Facebook page had apparently tried to jump on an old scam, which so far can mainly be found on Twitter. In the networks, scammers pretend to be Elon Musk, who is known as a supporter of crypto currencies such as Bitcoin or Dogecoin. In the posts, the fake Tesla bosses urge users to send Bitcoins to a certain address in order to receive double the amount back. The victims go away empty-handed in the Bitcoin lottery and never see their digital money again.
The falsely verified Facebook page had over 150,000 followers before Facebook banned it. Research in the Internet archive “WayBackMachine” shows that Facebook had previously verified a fake Elon Musk with a confirmation tick (ElonMuskofficia1).
Facebook verification requires account owners to provide proof of identity, such as a driver’s license or passport. Sometimes scammers manage to rename already verified pages and thus assume a new identity without Facebook noticing this and revoking the original verification.