Nythe, Eldene and Liden Parish Councilor Mike Davies was shocked to discover that a Twitter account had been set up in his name.
This account not only stole his profile picture, but also retweeted some of the political campaign activity he had been involved in to make it legitimately look like his account.
Whoever was behind this identity theft would message people directly, posing as Mr Davies, before finally offering them an "investment opportunity".
The bewildered councilor -the real one- posted on his Twitter account -the real one- to warn people about duplicity.
He said: โGood morning. Just keep in mind that this is not me. Please report. Reserve Army!"
The fake account had sent messages to various people saying things like "This is my personal blog, to interact with the people of Swindon and learn about their needs and what they want."
In an attempt to see what would happen, an Adver reporter followed the fake page and sure enough received a message from the fake Mike Davies.
After exchanging pleasantries, which included the impostor asking 'how's your work as a reporter going,' the scam began to reveal itself.
"Do you make any investment, do you know that they can ensure your future since they are important?" no-Mike Davies said, before adding: โWell I have a few that help me, however they may be of benefit to you, as I have some experience with them I can introduce you to one of them.
โI will send you the information of my personal investment manager. I don't normally give this to people, but I'm willing to help."
Our reporter played along and tried to get the person pretending to be Mike Davies to answer questions that would get them, but he avoided them.
Eventually, the scammer requested an email address, which was provided. The reporter then received an email from 'Tyler Smith', the 'investment manager'.
It read: โMr. Mike Davies instructed me to send you some details about the investment.
โCurrently, what I am offering is account management on my platform. Our platform helps clients who are interested in making 6X their original investment within 7 business days.
โWe have this ongoing program on our platform where we recruit clients and students who are willing to invest some capital in cryptocurrency to be precise and get its potential return in 7 days, a month, 6 months, a year and so on depending on How long do you intend to work with us?
"If you are interested, please answer with a YES or NO so that we can proceed to start the investment."
Shortly after this email was sent, the fake 'Mike Davies' Twitter account was removed, presumably because multiple people had reported it.
Reacting to his identity being stolen by malicious means, Councilor Davies said: "Impersonation is becoming more and more prevalent on social media - Facebook accounts are regularly duplicated to try and trick people into providing security details or the like, but this is the first time it has happened to me on Twitter.
"It's really important that people educate themselves about the dangers of social media scams - if you see a new account from someone you already know, let them know and report it, and most importantly, don't provide any personal information of your own.", added.
The Adver asked 'Tyler Smith' why they thought it was acceptable to target people like that, but they didn't answer.
