Bizarre WhatsApp hoax warning of ‘payment scam’ debunked – how to avoid getting tricked
AN "Instant bank fraud" hoax is circulating on WhatsApp.
The scam claims to be a message from the City of London Police fraud team and attempts to scare people into sharing in.
The hoax message states: "Straight from the City of London Police fraud team – Extremely sophisticated scam going about this morning.
"Definitely Danske bank customers but possibly all banks. You get a message saying a payment hasn’t been taken eg O2,Vodafone or EE [UK mobile providers] and to click here.
"As soon as you touch it the money is gone. They already have all your details and it’s the most advance scam the bank has ever seen.
"Pass this on to everyone. Please. This is from work this morning – they are being inundated with calls – thousands flying out of peoples accounts! Spread the word!"
The good news is this is just a nasty prank and nothing in the message is true.
The people behind the message just want to scare people into sharing it and make it spread as far as possible.
UK citizens are clearly being targeted by the specificity of this hoax.
The real City of London Police has tweeted to highlight the scam.
It retweeted an Action Fraud post and wrote: "Please be aware of false message currently being circulated."
If you do receive this message you should not pass it on as you could be spreading fear and concern unnecessarily to your friends and family.
To avoid being tricked by a hoax in the future make sure you don't spread a message until you've checked out all the facts.
Don't be fooled by claims of authority, go to a verified account to check whether a message can be backed up.
WhatsApp – a quick history
Here's what you need to know...
- WhatsApp was created in 2009 by computer programmers Brian Acton and Jan Koum - former employees of Yahoo
- It's one of the most popular messaging services in the world
- Koum came up with the name WhatsApp because it sounded like "what's up"
- After a number of tweaks the app was released with a messaging component in June 2009, with 250,000 active users
- It was originally free but switched to a paid service to avoid growing too fast. Then in 2016, it became free again for all users
- Facebook bought WhatsApp Inc in February 2014 for $19.3billion (£14.64bn)
- The app is particularly popular because all messages are encrypted during transit, shutting out snoopers
- As of January 2018, WhatsApp has over 2billion users globally
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