Hackers have recently hijacked the Twitter account of a major supermarket in the UK, Tesco, and used their access to promote a bitcoin scam that saw them pose as Bill Gates to try and get users to send them BTC.

According to Bleeping Computer, the hackers compromised Tesco’s official Twitter account, which has over 540,000 followers. The hackers started urging users to send them over BTC, purportedly to celebrate the cryptocurrency’s price rise, claiming they’d double their money.

Later on, they changed the handle to @Billgatesmsc and replaced its profile picture with one of the Microsoft co-founder, before continuing their bitcoin scam attempt. While no customers appear to have fallen for the scam, Tesco briefly lost its verified status on the microblogging platform over the ordeal.

The hackers notably also replied to some Tesco customers, requesting personal information such as full names, addresses, postcodes, and more. This, while still impersonating Bill Gates. Tesco’s customers realized something was amiss, and it’s believed no one fell for the requests.

At press time, Tesco has regained control of its Twitter account, which has gotten its verified badge back. It’s unclear how the hackers managed to compromise the supermarket’s account, and the firm hasn’t issued any statements on it.

Notably, scammers trying to get cryptocurrencies on Twitter with these schemes have been around since last year. As CryptoGlobe covered, the scammers kept on hijacking verified Twitter accounts, and then used them to promote fake cryptocurrency giveaway links.

In a famous case they impersonated Tesla founder Elon Musk, and managed to rake in over $39,000 from unsuspecting victims.