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A 20-year-old named Shane Missler from Tallahassee, Florida won $450 million on January 5, marking the second largest jackpot won by a single ticket in history. Missler chose to receive a one-time, lump-sum payment of $281,874,999, minus taxes.
“I’m only 20, but I hope to use it to pursue a variety of passions, help my family and do some good for humanity,” he said in a statement.
Thousands of people thought they were going to be the beneficiary’s of Shane’s ‘good for humanity’ when he seemingly tweeted that he was going to donate $5,000 to his first 50,000 followers that retweet and like the below post:
If Shane were true to his word, that would mean that he would give away $250 million of his $281 million lump sum to strangers on the inter webs. Red flag. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
But, nearly 53,000 people were fooled by the account that would later be revealed as fake. According to the Miami Herald, 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.
Shane’s actual account tweeted the below to burst everyones bubble:
When you read all the suckers who fell for the fake account, it makes you want to laugh and cry for them simultaneously.
[h/t Gizmodo]