Despite the ability to have two-factor authentication and all manner of other safety protocols, we still have famous people getting their Twitter accounts hacked so the hackers can try to scam their many followers out of some money.
Sometimes this happens in the world of sports media — ask Jeff Passan and Tim Bontemps, who have both had their Twitter accounts hacked to shill NFTs and/or PlayStations — but on Monday night it happened to Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, whose account started offering up PS5’s under the guise of selling them for charity (and offering to fly someone out for lunch with the “Lakers family.”)
In a shocking turn of events, the owner of the Lakers was not actually auctioning off PlayStations via DM on Twitter and instead this was a big scam, but it apparently succeeded in at least getting a few gullible souls to respond because on Tuesday morning the Lakers official Twitter account had to release a statement from Buss to not interact with her account until she got control of it back.
“Lakers Fans, my Twitter account has been hacked. Please do not engage with it or send any money. These are NOT legitimate offers. The Lakers will alert you when I am back in control of my account." – Jeanie Buss
— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) August 2, 2022
I think a good general rule of thumb is to not try to buy video game consoles from any Twitter account, much less a famous person who suddenly is tweeting out an image of a PS5 box sitting on the floor of a house or apartment that looks in no way like where a billionaire NBA team owner would live. However, it’s important to state these things directly and hopefully Jeanie gets her account back soon so she can go back to firing off cryptic tweets about loyalty and stirring up rumors that way.
