Ever made up a fake girlfriend so you wouldn’t be the only single person on Valentine’s Day? If so, you may not be alone. WaltonChain(WTC), a China-based platform for smart logistics, was accused of faking its own social media following after an accidental tweet sent out Wednesday morning.

The scandal started with a delighted tweet from a WaltonChain fan, who had just won WTC’s Valentine’s Day giveaway. The only problem? The “fan” was still logged into the @Waltonchain twitter account.

The tweet quickly vanished , but not before snowballing on Twitter and social media. investors accused WTC of “astroturfing“ social media with fake followers, rigging the Valentine‘s Day contest, and worst of all, being technologically inept.

The contest offered prizes of 2.14 WTC(~$47) to 214 followers on Twitter, with five larger prizes of 21.4 WTC each.

Bad Mistake; Worse Response

Questions were met with summary bans and censorship in WTC discussion groups on Telegram and Reddit. The price of the WTC token fell 13.5 percent, from $22 to $19.

Just sold all my $wtc after @Waltonchain cheated and rigged a valentines giveaway. Shame on @Waltonchain @Waltonchain_KOR @WaltonChainUK @Waltonchain_EN

I think all most people want is for @ Waltonchain $ wtc to man up and admit they rigged their own contest.. Banning everyone in telegram is NOT the answer.

~@KiwiCrypto

However, Waltonchain did have its defenders. Several real-looking accounts chimed in to say that they had legitimately won the contest. Others wondered why a half-billion-dollar company would rig a contest to save, at most, a few thousand dollars.

After six hours of radio silence, @Waltonchain finally reacted with a reluctant apology. “A Waltonchain team member was among the winners and excitedly tweeted using the wrong profile,” the apology read, promising to prohibit employees from participating in the future. The apology was accompanied by a purported video of the selection process.

The apology was did not satisfy WTC’s detractors, many of whom wondered why a “Waltonchain team member” would make such an over-the-top reaction post. Others pointed out that the eight-second clip did little to prove that the contest wasn’t rigged.

Still, things could be worse for the Walton team. Despite the embarrassment, they’re still better at social media than Firano.

Waltonchain did not respond to CoinStaker’s email request for comment.