Twitter battles a wave of impersonations after launching its new payment verification system

() — Twitter appears to be battling a wave of celebrity and corporate impersonations on its platform that quickly circumvented the company’s new pay verification system hours after it was launched.

has confirmed that the platform has suspended several verified accounts after other users posted screenshots showing misleading content from the accounts. The fake verified accounts had been posing as former President Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Nintendo of America, basketball player LeBron James, software company Valve, and others.

Before being suspended, the imposter Nintendo account tweeted an image of the video game character Mario pointing his middle finger at the viewer. LeBron James’ account falsely claimed that the athlete had requested a trade. Trump’s fake account tweeted: “This is why Elon Musk’s plan doesn’t work.”

Multiple Twitter users reported Wednesday that they easily created verified imposter accounts, though was unable to independently confirm responsibility in all cases.

spoke with the user behind the fake Trump account, Brian Whelan, whose Twitter and LinkedIn bio identifies him as head of video and social media at London-based Times Radio.

On Twitter, Whelan claimed he created a fake Trump account “between two beers” and after spending £6, and tweeted a screenshot of the fake account trying, but failing, to follow the former US Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton after the fake account was suspended.

In an interview with , Whelan said he managed to impersonate Trump by repurposing an old, free account. He purchased Twitter Blue for the old account using a prepaid card linked to his real name and “immediately [tuvo] a fake Trump with a blue tick for two hours.”

Rachel Tobac, a cybersecurity expert, noted the trend, saying it could quickly spread to bad actors posing as authorities or other government accounts.

“This verification rollout is already causing major trust issues across the platform,” Tobac tweeted.

Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, said the feature is aimed at increasing spammers’ costs and that accounts that abuse the new verification system to impersonate others would be permanently banned, despite his earlier promises that such bans would be “extremely rare” under their ownership of the platform.

The spoofing wave comes as Twitter made it possible for any user to purchase a blue checkmark for their profiles without providing identity verification, a feature information security experts warned would lead to widespread spoofing and deceptive behavior. .

Musk argued during a Twitter Spaces event with advertisers on Wednesday that even wealthy bad actors, like state-sponsored disinformation agents, would eventually be deterred because they could be left without credit cards and phone numbers.

Asked by to respond to that claim, Chris Krebs, former director of the US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, tweeted a GIF from the cartoon “Futurama” showing the character Fry narrowing his eyes skeptically.

– ‘s Rachel Metz contributed to this report.