ALL SORTED NOW THANK YOU Advice needed - Scam OR Genuine Win

whizzybop

I have been following this account on Twitter for at least 12 months. https://twitter.com/merlinouwww

Many from MSE also follow this account. Every 2-3 days they have a competition and I enter them all.

Last night I received a direct message from the account stating that I have won a PlayStation 5.

This is an amazing win for me BUT I’m not getting my hopes up as there are a couple of things that are bothering me.

Below is the message I received copied and pasted from my twitter account: 

Dear Winner,

 Congratulations on winning the PlayStation 5! We are thrilled to inform you that you have been selected as the lucky recipient of this amazing gaming console. The PlayStation 5 is a highly sought-after device, and we are excited for you to experience its powerful performance and immersive gaming capabilities. However, we have an important update regarding the shipping process. Due to recent changes in our shipping policy, there is a $50 shipping fee associated with receiving the PlayStation 5. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Additionally, we regret to inform you that we are currently experiencing issues with our PayPal account. As a result, we are unable to accept payments through that platform at the moment. However, we have alternative payment methods available for you. To proceed with the payment, we kindly request that you make the payment in cryptocurrency, purchase a subscription to Kick Subs, or provide us with gift cards equivalent to the $50 shipping fee. The gift cards can be from reputable retailers, and once you provide us with the necessary details, we will verify the amount and use it to cover the shipping fees. Once the payment is completed or the gift cards are provided, please share the necessary details, such as the transaction ID, subscription confirmation, or gift card codes, so that we can verify the payment and proceed with shipping your prize. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience caused by these circumstances. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to our customer support team, and they will be more than happy to assist you. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. We look forward to providing you with an excellent gaming experience with the PlayStation 5! Best regards, Merlinouww Gamer Nest Team

Note - It does say at the top of their Twitter page that shipping isn’t free.

What’s bothering me is the fact that there are problems with their PayPal account and payment via cryptocurrency or gift cards is the only option to send shipping costs. This sound difficult and involved for me to do and if it is a scam I probably have no comeback as I won’t have PayPal protection. 

Also payment is in US Dollars so obviously not based in UK.

They give away lots of prizes. Wouldn’t their Twitter account not have been shut down by now if they were scammers? Also how does a gamer give away all these consoles. Is he super rich?

I’m excited but also very wary. I really don’t know what to do?

Would you risk $50 ??

Has anyone else on here won a prize from this account?

Thanks in advance

Brie

No.  This says scam to me.  I get a lot of similar things and I'm not even entering any comps!

That said - can you go back on twitter and ask someone on there to confirm what's happening?  They will know if you have won or not and whether there are others being phished for some reason.

marcia_

 Screams of a scam, i wouldn't be paying with crypto. Or gift cards. At least with PayPal you can get protection which they know so wont use it. 

mjm3346

Wouldn’t their Twitter account not have been shut down by now if they were scammers? - no

KJ1986

Check the profile of the user that has sent you the direct message.

About two months ago I had a similar message from what I thought was merlinouwww. However, when I clicked on the profile of the person who sent the dm there was one character different in the username and this was a fake profile someone had created. You'll see that they won't have 69k followers like th original user.

I'm guessing this is most likely what has happened here and then person running the competition will know nothing about it.

Ms_Dee

These seems very much like a scam. I'm not even sure of the protection from Paypal vs overseas etc. 
They have also had their account since June 2020 but they have only posted competitions and only since June 13th 2023.
If you go on Twitter and type merlinouww in the People search, soooo many results come up, so no telling who is genuine, but by the amount of followers everyone thinks that one is. (Sadly the blue tick on Twitter doesn't mean anything now, it is the gold tick that shows official companies)
There name is Merlinouww but their actual account is Merlinouwww (Extra w)

I'm also very concerned that they are getting people to join the Drive site, considering they liked most of their tweets, before posting anything themselves, both situated in France.

They've deleted everything they posted previously, which is suspicious if they've held other genuine competitions.


Make sure it is from the actual, exact twitter account that you commented on. It should say you are following them, the correct number of followers etc. (see image)





You could ask them to wait until their Paypal is back up and running and ask them to inbox you through business. See what happens. It doesn't take much to create a new Paypal if they really were having issues. 

whizzybop

Thanks to everyone for your replies, I really appreciate them. 

Your andded input has confirmed my suspicions.

I’ve found several tweets from other users that refer to him as a scammer. One of them even had the same direct message as me, which they had shared with the public. I guess they may have been a victim of his fraud. 

Thank goodness I didn’t fall for it 👍