Hat tip to @CelebFakeOuts and @DaveGorman for alerting me to the fact that @FollowMeRecord (see: Follow me Record : Another Children in Need Twitter Scam?) had changed their name to @TweetRumours

This I think is reasonable evidence that FollowMeRecord was indeed a scam. Before changing their account name they never tweeted, as they had promised, an update on their fundraising activities. Instead they removed their Pudsey Bear Avatar and their last tweet, as cached by Google, was:-

Perhaps they thought no one would notice the change of name but having changed it and it being noticed they now appear to have vanished. Perhaps further questioning of their activities by Dave Gorman tonight made them decide to change name again or delete the account (like we previously witnessed FollowersInNeed do). Perhaps Twitter suspended the account. Different tweeps were getting different messages tonight some suggesting suspension others suggesting that the name simply no longer existed. Hopefully, however, the account has been deleted or suspended and will not survive in some other shape, form or fashion.

Dave Gorman has tonight updated his blog post on 'Beware of Twitter Scams':-

"FollowMeRecord have recently changed their name to @TweetRumours. When they were called FollowMeRecord they exchanged private messages with me and one of them - Harry - gave me his mobile phone number. He said something like "if you think we're fraudulent you can publish it if you like" and he said something similar in his blog post here. FollowMeRecord were based in Leeds whereas TweetRumours is claiming to be in Southampton.

I called Harry. I said, "Hello..." and he put the phone down.

It all sort of suggests that they were lying in the first place or that maybe it went a bit pear shaped. But TweetRumours definitely doesn't feel like the work of 3 adults. I don't think I'll publish his number. I might well pass it to the police though."

On Saturday I blogged on Followers in Need : The Children in Need Twitter Scam

Around that time questions were being asked of another similar Twitter Account: @FollowMeRecord

Like @FollowersInNeed they were pledging a 50p donation to Children in Need for every follower. Their Bio stated that this was with the help from their sponsors all over Yorkshire. No more detail was given and the web link was to the official BBC Children in Need website.

However, unlike @FollowersInNeed they responded to questioning by creating a blog with a post explaining the background and how the money was being raised. Apparently "@FollowMeRecord  was set up initially by three work colleagues sat at the pub trying to brainstorm ideas on how to raise money for the charity Children in Need. Robert Whitmarsh, Harry Gill and Sarah Kutchins".

Robert, Harry and Sarah canvassed several local businesses and individuals asking each what the maximum they would be willing to donate. Totting up the totals they had a "Potential" £7300. In their blog they point out that a few people had asked, "Why not just donate the £7300 and be done with it?" Harry explained this as follows: "If you were doing a sponsored silence, say £1 an hour, you would go to individuals asking what they would be willing to sponsor you for and on having completed the task go and collect the funds. The same concept applies here". Harry does, however, admit that the error on their part was not mentioning that they had a target cap to reach of just under 15,000 (£7300) followers and therefore implying that there were unlimited funds available was a "big mistake" and he holds his hands up for it.

Harry says that originally their list of sponsors were listed on the background image of their Twitter page but they were asked to remove/alter it by one of the donors, and ever since the Pudsey Bear image has been there. This seemed a little odd - why would they take all donors down as a result of a request by one and why would a donor wish to be removed in any event. However, as a result of the questioning on Twitter they put up a refreshed list of their sponsors on their Twitter background page (I assume minus the donor who originally wished to be removed).

The donors are listed as: J & J Decorating Services, Eden Developments Ltd, Premah Plumbing & Tiling, MPM Plumber Merchants, Lecafeshop.co.uk, Northgate Hire Ltd, Fast Response Plumbing, Blue Moon Trading Co, Electrotown.co.uk, Morycon Grocers, Talstine Caterers and Barrocloughs Waste Management.

It was all starting to look a lot different from @FollowersInNeed. There was a list of donors and a cap on the total donation that would be made by them. It looked like a legitimate account. Although as Harry acknowledged "it was a good idea but maybe lacking execution".

@DaveGorman (like me) thought they were legitimate.

However, people were still questioning @FollowMeRecord and it was beginning to get to them. Their last tweet said "Honestly had enough from some of you guys. I'll tweet again Fri @ 10pm then update u guys and close this account. find some1 else 2 'bother'". I thought this a pity and wondered if they had simply suffered unduly as a result of the backlash following on from the scam by @FolllowersInNeed.

4 hours following 10pm on Friday and @FollowMeRecord still has not updated us. Followers stand at 8,865 so that is £4,432.50 going to Children in Need from their donors. Or is it? @CelebFakeOuts reveled in a TwitLonger that:-

"Those of you who have been following for a while will know that on Monday i tackled @FollowMeRecord on a few issues i wasn't happy with, to which i received a mixed response. In one of my tweets i mentioned @LeCafeShop as being one of their supposed sponsors. The lovely Patrick who owns the company contacted me to ask if there was a problem. We spoke in private and it became clear his company name was being used as a sponsor without his agreement or knowledge. I contacted #childreninneed on Tuesday morning who confirmed that this account was already under investigation so we have left it until today to ask @FollowMeRecord why they have done this. They are getting lots of #FollowFridays now by genuine people who don't know they have lied about at least one their sponsors. If you believe this is wrong, please help us and #childreninneed by retweeting. Thank you so much, C"

Patrick of @LeCafeShop has also tweeted about the situation.

Perhaps Harry from @FollowMeRecord will update his blog or comment on this blog as to what the position is with regard to their sponsors and in particular Lecafeshop.co.uk.

I also picked up tonight that a scam account @03457332233 (which is the Children In Need telephone number) had been tweeting that they would donate 5p per follower to Children in Need and would make that in effect 50p per follower if a certain tweet was re-tweeted 100 times.

Pressure from @ACloakedFigure resulted in the scammer abandoning the account and (as @JackofKent did with @FollowersInNeed) @ACloakedFigure snapped the account up to prevent it being used for further scamming. It, like @FollowersInNeed, now points to the official BBC Children in Need website.

These scammers detract from the genuine accounts and actual fundraising efforts. Even @ChildrenInNeed is an unofficial Twitter account which has existed since 2008 although it has not tweeted this year. However, at least they make it clear that they are an unofficial site and do not appear to have attempted a scam of any kind. The official Children In Need site is @pudseybear. Perhaps best to just follow that one and simply ignore the rest. You can donate at www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey

£18,098,199 had been raised as at 2am on Saturday morning.

UPDATE - 20 November 2010 - 23:30

It is now more than 24 hours after the 10pm deadline by which @FollowMeRecord set themselves to update us and there has not been as much as a tweet from them.

At 10.20pm last night @Cap_Howdy tweeted "Well it's 20 past 10 so where's the update? We want to know how we all did".

At 1.12pm this afternoon @aljharrison tweeted "Looking forward to an update. I think you owe #cin £4269 or even the full £7300 you mentioned?"

I noticed on Twitter today many tweets and retweets of @FollowersInNeed's request to follow them in exchange for a 50p per follower donation to Children in Need. I did think this rather generous given the potential to obtain hundreds of thousands of followers. Who were Followers in Need and where was the money coming from? Was this for real or a scam? These are the questions that were asked of @FollowersInNeed by @ACloakedFigure @BackConsulting @DaveGorman @jackofkent @Charonqc and others.

I asked "But can you simply explain to everyone where the money is coming from to meet your pledge?".

Answers were not forthcoming.

The bio of @FollowersInNeed stated that "money is being raised in some local villages & large companies have donated money!". A tweet claimed that they had already raised £20,000 which would cover 40,000 followers. They were apparently still raising funds. What if the funds raised did not equate to the eventual number of followers x 50p? They were being asked this but were not answering. The reality was that they had probably not raised a single penny from anyone and had no funds to meet the 50p x followers pledge.

Why would 'some local villages & large companies' donate money to Followers in Need rather than directly to Children in Need?

As @DaveGorman tweeted:-

In a very short space of time @FollowersInNeed were receiving retweets from many celebrities such as @Amanda_Holden:-

Such endorsements no doubt helped them to an ever increasing follower count which stood at 12,433 late this afternoon. That is £6,216.50 worth of donations. However, the pressure of questioning from doubting tweeters was clearly getting to them. They had no answers to give. They crumbled and changed the name of their account to @closingaccount_

Interesting that once the game was up they were tweeting "mm", then "bored.." A claim that they were donating £7,000 to Children In Need could no doubt be taken with a pinch of salt. True colours were then revealed with "someone else will take over this account and use it for something else. So please don't unfollow! Especially Amanda Holden, The Wanted, JLS and saturdays fans!! ..And cheryl fans!". Was this the real reason for the scam - simply to gain followers for other purposes? Whatever their reasons it is despicable to use a Charity as a front for such activity. As we have seen at InkstersGive Twitter can be a very powerful force for fundraising. It is a great pity when people abuse this power.

The account then became @lovingtheholden ('lucky Amanda Holden!' as @DaveGorman tweeted) and then @lovingteamsats (lucky The Saturdays). Goodness knows what it is now if it still exists. Hopefully the owner of the account has realised the error of their ways and simply deleted it.

@DaveGorman gives a very good account of what happened and his views and advice in the longest TwitLonger I have seen:-

"I need more than 140chars to answer all the Qs I'm getting about the FollowersInNeed charity scam. Here goes:

1) Lots of ppl were asking me to RT a link to @FollowersInNeed who were promising to donate 50p to Children In Need for every follower they got.

2) That seemed a bit dodgy to me. I mean, that's a promise that requires unlimited funds & there was nothing on their page to explain who they were or how their donation was really related to their follower count.

3) I asked them to verify themselves.

4) They didn't. It became pretty clear it was a scam - any legitimate donor would have been leaping at the chance to prove they were legit.

5) They changed the name of the account. First to something about how much they liked Amanda Holden, then to @closingaccount_ and the last time I checked to @LovingTeamSats (they're fans of The Saturdays) A lot of people have asked me what I think they were getting out of the scam or what harm it was doing. I *think* they were probably young girls getting the same thrill kids get when they knock on a door and run away... a simple, "ha ha... look what we did!" I might be wrong. There are other worse interpretations available involving malware or spam etc.

6) It's true that they weren't making money out of it. But charity-fatigue is a well known phenomenon. Nobody can RT every charity request they get. If someone chose to RT that one instead of another, real good cause then they have done some damage.

7)When they changed their name, @JackOfKent cleverly nabbed the old name to ensure that nobody could use @FollowersInNeed for such purposes again. Well done him.

8)I'm told there are other accounts making similar promises. @followmerecord @CINsupport I haven't looked at them and am not suggesting that they are definitely dodgy. Nor do I know if they're legit. I encourage everyone to apply common sense. If they are legit they should have no problem in verifying how they do what they do. Ask yourself who would donate 50p to a charity in return for you following them - especially if they remain anonymous? How would they afford it? etc.

9) In summary: It was a scam. Not one that tried to steal money, just one that wasted people's time and distracted them from other good causes. The account *now* using that name is controlled by someone else and is harmless.

10)You can follow the official Children In Need twitter account at @pudseybear - but of course you following them doesn't raise any money. You can donate at http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey"

UPDATE

Dave Gorman (@DaveGorman) has also blogged on this topic at Beware of Twitter Scams as has George Pearson (@gdhp) on his 57 WPM blog.

See also on the Inksters Give Blog: Follow me Record : Another Children in Need Twitter Scam?