Cleveland Browns fans desperate for a playmaker got their hopes up this weekend when a person purporting to be Trent Richardson unleashed a series of tweets professing his affection for the franchise.
Unfortunately, the Twitter account @TrentRich03 is a fake, as confirmed by the Akron Beacon Journal on Sunday.
"It is not real," University of Alabama official Josh Maxson wrote in an e-mail to the Beacon Journal. "Trent does not have a Twitter (account) and isn't planning on getting one."
When it comes to bogus Twitter accounts, the number of followers is what tends to fool people most. In this case, Bizarro Trent had nearly 16,000 followers, a figure impressive enough for several media outlets to cite the feed in reports.
Of course, the tweets weren't nearly as entertaining as Bizarro Brett Favre, a hacker who famously gave updates on "Meatball Mondays" and mowing his lawn.
As for the misled Browns fans, don't get too down. The real Trent Richardson could still be yours come April 26.
