Sunrise's David Koch targeted by cruel death hoax: 'He lived a full life'

Sunrise host David 'Kochie' Koch has been targeted by scammers using his image and claiming he has died in order to scam people out of thousands of dollars.

The 67-year-old took to Twitter after a post by user @kimberly_ramrez claiming he had died went viral.

The post read: "Although saying goodbye is never easy, we take comfort in knowing that Kochie lived a full and meaningful life, leaving behind a legacy of kindness, warmth and compassion."

Kochie re-tweeted a photo of the tweet, writing, "Just for clarity, I’m alive and well and enjoying @AFL #gatherround in Adelaide with all my family. This stuff is really giving me the sh#ts."

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"Cannot imagine having to put up with this s**t," one user responded.

"RIP, mate," another joked.

"It’d be a full time job reporting very ad. I don’t know how you put up with it," a third added.

The tweet from Kimberly Ramirez's account appeared to be an advertisement to scam users into signing up for a cryptocurrency service in return for a finder's fee, Crikey reports.

Kimberley, whose account was hacked, told the publication via email, "I had no idea this was happening. I had deleted the app off my phone for a while and forgot about it."

The New York-based woman revealed that she received a login attempt email saying someone in Lake Forest, Illinois was trying to access her account. They then changed her email and started advertising their pose on Twitter using her account.

"This a**hole left me a debt of over $1k on ads," she added.

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The ads included links to the website kitchensandcountertopsdirect.com, a Massechusetts-based kitchen remodelling company. Some users, however, were directed to a fake ABC news article on the domain MuskNews.net, which claimed Kochie was promoting "a new cryptocurrency auto-trading program, Immediate Edge", in an interview with The Project's Waleed Aly, which was all fake.

Immediate Edge has used numerous celebrities including Jeremy Clarkson, Piers Morgan and Justin Trudeau to entice people into signing up for their "get rich quick" scam. Many people have signed up to the service and been promised great returns only to lose thousands of dollars and be locked out of their accounts.

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