A Person Got Scammed for a Fake Banksy NFT but Received a Refund
The investor spent a lot on a fake NFT on Banksy’s website
The NFT space is as weird and as wonderful as it can be. It was proven once again when a person paid US$ 340,000 (AU$ 466,120) in Ethereum for a fake Banksy NFT that was present on the website of the famous artist. When Banksy’s spokesperson highlighted that the artist wasn’t involved with the NFTs, the person who had sold it refunded the entire amount to the collector. Sounds bizarre? Read on for more.
The purchase and refund of the Fake Banksy NFT are getting a lot of media attention. Another interesting fact is that the name of the collector who had bought the fake Banksy is Pranksy. He told a reputed media house that he heard about the auction from someone in his Discord.
The auction was held on OpenSea, an NFT marketplace. It seemed legit because the seller had posted a link to a page of the official website of Banksy. The page showed the fake Banksy NFT that depicted a Cryptopunk-esque person who can be seen smoking in front of industrial smokestacks.
Within an hour, the seller accepted Pranksy’s bid for US$ 340,000 (about AU$ 465,120) for the fake Banksy NFT. After that, however, Pranksy got suspicious, and he found out that the NFT page was no longer on the official Banksy website. Soon after, the artist’s spokesperson told a news publication that Banksy hasn’t created “created any NFT artworks.” After this statement, Pranksy realized that he had been scammed.
Sometime after that, Pranksy found out that the scammer had returned the entire amount of Ethereum. Both the transactions were visible in Etherscan. Though Pranksy got a refund, he still has no idea why the scammer gave a refund for the fake Banksy NFT. He didn’t get a note with the payment.
Getting a refund after such an incident is a strange thing. The system is designed to transfer the funds from one wallet to another permanently, and after that, there is no way to get the funds back until the person you paid decides to send them back.
Twitter posts of Pranksy about the Banksy NFT
However the account has minted a second #NFT which makes me feel I have in fact been scammed here, very elaborate takeover of the https://t.co/J8U3TmR3gE website
— Pranksy 📦 (@pranksy) August 31, 2021
Just to add a comment, to those who feel this may have been some sort of stunt. I would never risk a future relationship with Banksy or any fine artist by hiring someone to hack their website and then buying an #NFT from myself, what an unusual day!
— Pranksy 📦 (@pranksy) August 31, 2021
Some Twitter users believe that the entire process of sale and refund for the fake Banksy NFT was a publicity stunt. Would you agree? Let us know in the comments. In other news, EtherRock NFT was just sold for 400 Ether or About AU$ 1.7 million.
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