New Scary Bank scam via What'sApp

hollydolly

hollydolly

SF VIP
Location
London England
I've copied this from another British forum... this person is very tech savvy so she's warning people that if she can get caught, just how easy it would be for others....

This the story...


''I surprisingly got a WhatsApp message from a member of my voluntary team that I work with. She asked how I was as the last time she had seen me, I had gone home sick.
I replied that I was fine now thank you.
Another message followed immediately asking me to join a new ‘workgroup’ she had set up. I intended to ignore it but accidentally pressed on the link.

It immediately blocked and deleted my WhatsApp account.

I then made a proper call to her to ask what was going on.

She was cross that I called her saying her phone had been hacked and it was a scam. I hung up.

My phone rang back straight away which I presumed was her. The person at the other end screamed and swore at me calling me every rude name under the sun. Obviously I hung up.

On researching the number it was all part of a WhatsApp scam. I kept getting a message to re set my WhatsApp saying they had sent me a code to a phone I didn’t have. They also asked me for more details which I didn’t give. I was fortunate that I don’t have my email address attached to my WhatsApp account and everything else is encrypted.

Others of my team had also received this dodgy message.
I was without my account for over 12 hours and have had to jump through hoops to get my account back. Don’t be fooled by the same thing that seemed really innocent ''
 

OneEyedDiva said:
What am I missing? How is this a bank scam? I thought What's App was just a means to text and call people. :unsure:
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I was wondering that part, too. Maybe it was still going to get there if the person had followed the scammers instructions. It might work similar to the facebook scammers.
They use a picture from someone’s facebook profile and then make a duplicate account, and then start sending friend requests from the cloned account to the original person’s friends.
They ask you how you are, little chatty stuff, and then say that they have recdived a large free grant and want to sow you how to do that , too, and send a link to apply for the grant.
You assume that the friend request came from your friend, and when you accept the request, then the scam begins.

One way to stop this scam, is to keep your friend list private on social media. The scammers target people who have a large number of friends, and where the list is set so that anyone can see your friends list. If they can’t see your friend list, then they can’t work the scam on them.
 

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Happyflowerlady said:
I was wondering that part, too. Maybe it was still going to get there is the person had followed the scammers instructions. It might work similar to the facebook scammers. They use a picture from someone’s facebook profile and then make a duplicate account, and then start sending friend requests from the cloned account to the original person’s friends.
They ask you how you are, little chatty stuff, and then say that they have recdived a large free grant and want to sow you how to do that , too, and send a link to apply for the grant.
You assume that the friend request came from your friend, and when you accept the request, then the scam begins.

One way to stop this scam, is to keep your friend list private on social media. The scammers target people who have a large number of friends, and where the list is set so that anyone can see your friends list. If they can’t see your friend list, then they can’t work the scam on them.
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Glad it wasn't just me HFL !! I saw an article a while back that warned against using What's App at all, so I deleted it. The sax player I commissioned to play a track for me used it to send the music to my son (who's my engineer). My son didn't like What's App either, especially for that purpose and suggested he use another method. We wound up not being able to use his track anyway.
 
th OP in that forum was questioned as to how this was a Bank scam.. and this was her reply...
Quote ..
I received a message from a colleague. Nothing out of the ordinary. And an invitation to join something she was setting up….. again nothing odd.
EXCEPT she had had her account hacked and this was scam.
Most people in her account were all hacked.
Hope this makes it clear. Anyone can be caught out if it appears from a genuine personal friend.
 
hollydolly said:
th OP in that forum was questioned as to how this was a Bank scam.. and this was her reply...
Quote ..
I received a message from a colleague. Nothing out of the ordinary. And an invitation to join something she was setting up….. again nothing odd.
EXCEPT she had had her account hacked and this was scam.
Most people in her account were all hacked.
Hope this makes it clear. Anyone can be caught out if it appears from a genuine personal friend.
Click to expand...
No it's still not clear to me. Which account is she referring to? Her What's App account or bank account? I never had to add bank information to my What's App account and don't know if that is even an option. The most people in her account doesn't seem like it's referring to a bank account.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
No it's still not clear to me. Which account is she referring to? Her What's App account or bank account? I never had to add bank information to my What's App account and don't know if that is even an option. The most people in her account doesn't seem like it's referring to a bank account.
Click to expand...
i have just written it here as it was she wrote it... that's all I know
 
hollydolly said:
Quote ..
I received a message from a colleague. Nothing out of the ordinary. And an invitation to join something she was setting up….. again nothing odd.
Click to expand...
This is the part of the financial scam. Your ‘friend’ has a wonderful suggestion about some great money making scheme.
 

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