Once they’re added to WhatsApp and have gained the victim’s trust, the fraudster will ask for a money transfer. Boughton, scammers contact the victim, usually through SMS, and say they’re a close relative or a friend who lost their phone or changed their number. The friend or relative in need who urgently needs money. The techniques they use generally aren’t very complex and usually involve some form of social engineering, so here’s a shortlist of the most popular WhatsApp scams. With approximately 2.44 billion users worldwide it’s no surprise WhatsApp is a favorite of cybercriminals and scammers. How WhatsApp scams work, and how you can spot them. Not all scam victims are as lucky, though, and many lose their entire life savings in a second. Only when Sam didn't reply to say good night, I started suspecting something was wrong.”įortunately, the bank managed to revert the money transfer and Mrs. I presumed it was my daughter, and I thought, well, because of the situation, I was able to do that. It went on after a couple of lines of text to ask me if I would make a transaction for her, which I agreed to, if she sent me the sort code, the payee's details, and the account number. 'I received a text message from what I presumed was my daughter, Sam, asking me to delete the old phone number as she'd been given a new number,' Mrs. Boughton from getting tricked into transferring almost £16,000 ($21,000) of her own savings to fraudsters posing as her daughter on WhatsApp.

Paula Boughton, a woman from Devon, UK, who’s been described as “savvy with technology” and perfectly aware of online scamming. ’Daughter told me she’d been given a new number’ In fact, it’s even more effective than a digital tool because it can fool even someone who’s familiar with technology and perfectly aware of cyber danger. All you need is some good old fashioned social engineering. Sometimes, you don’t need complicated malware to steal money from unsuspecting victims. Unsurprisingly, this also applies to cybercrime. For as long as anyone can remember, the most effective scams have been the simple ones, because they can pass undetected and appeal to a large demographic.

Whatsapp scams on iphones