What could be more “too good to be true” than winning $450 million in the Mega Millions lottery? How about the $450 million Mega Millions lottery winner declaring on Twitter it’s too much money for him and he’s giving $5,000 to the first 50,000 who follow and retweet him.
The first sentence actually happened Jan. 5 to Port Richey 20-year-old Shane Missler. The second comes from the Twitter account @ShaneMissler, but which isn’t Missler (@TheShaneMissler).
Missler declared he wanted to “do some good for humanity” with his winnings.
Again, thank you all for tuning in. This journey has only just begun, mark my words. Unfortunately many fake accounts have already circulated. My only active and real accounts are Instagram and Twitter both @TheShaneMissler #GratefulBeyondWords
— Shane Missler (@TheShaneMissler) January 13, 2018
The faux Missler account had more than 50,000 followers by noon Tuesday or over quadruple the followers of the 11,685 following Missler’s actual account. Before the fake account disappeared between noon and 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, it had a tweet that requested people keep following and sending their Vimeo and PayPal information for the $5,000 payout.
Of course, a few signs indicated the @ShaneMissler account shared the authenticity of a $20 bill with Michael Jackson instead of Andrew Jackson: The account was started this month, had no header photo and the profile photo of Missler with a girl wasn’t the photo itself, but lifted from a screen shot of a story on Missler winning the lottery.
When a gargantuan lottery winner comes from Florida, can a little attempted fraud be far behind?
David J. Neal: 305-376-3559, @DavidJNeal
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