It was just another case of Twitter mistaken identity.
When a computer glitch at NatWest, the largest commercial bank in the U.K., caused computers to go down last week and prevented customers from paying bills and moving money, they went to Twitter to complain.
They thought they were reaching the bank directly when tweeting @natwest, but instead, a woman named Natalie Westerman was flooded with all of those tweets, the Telegraph reported.
“I’m a 22 year old woman and I’m not a bank,” Westerman says on her Twitter page.
Westerman has handled the tweets good-naturedly, directing people concerned about their bank accounts to the official NatWest customer service Twitter, @NatWest_Help.
“Its been my twitter for a while and has never really bothered me before this weekend so will wait for it to die down,” Westerman tweeted. She has been on Twitter since 2009. Some people have suggested that she sell the Twitter handle to NatWest, but she is not interested in getting rid of it.
This is hardly the first time someone’s personal Twitter account has been mistaken for another person or a corporate account. Ashley Kerekes, the person behind @theashes, was bombarded with tweets from cricket fans during the Ashes when Qantas Airways offered her a free flight to Australia. Many people attacked @sarahpalin believing she was the former Republican Vice Presidential candidate, and @bp, @ted and @tyson have dealt with similar cases of mistaken identity.
The moral of this story? Read before you tweet.
Photo via Twitter
