World's oldest tortoise caught in viral crypto death scam

[William Seger]

7. The reason so many believed it so easily is that it wasn't a very extraordinary claim ...

... for such an old animal -- the extraordinary thing would be that he lived that long -- and if you didn't notice the bit about donations, there's no immediate reason to suspect that someone would lie about something like that. If you DID notice that bit and you were thinking about contributing (or thinking about re-reporting it in your news source!), that's when either a suspicious nature or critical thinking skills could have saved you some money and/or embarrassment.