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WhatsApp scammers have been targeting users in India with work from home opportunities. One user took to Twitter to show how the scam actually works.
This WhatsApp user Vedant G. who goes by the username VedVery5 on Twitter shared his experience with one of the scammers. The conversation starts with this woman called Georgina contacting him and offering Rs 150 for liking three YouTube videos. He follows the procedure and even ends up receiving the money. It doesn't end here though.
He is later added to a Telegram group with more people and they're asked to do 20 tasks for Rs 50 each. One of the tasks required people to send them money which would be returned with an interest. Some people actually ended up giving money, and when this happened they would be immediately kicked out of the group. Vedant was quick enough to notice that a bot was removing the alerts that popped up whenever someone was kicked out of the group. The Telegram group and WhatsApp chats were however both deleted when he went offline for a few hours.
The initial process of actually paying people is clearly to lure them into earning more money. Afterall, who wouldn't be happy to earn free money by simply liking YouTube videos. The real scam takes place in the Telegram group and some people unfortunately fall prey to it.
It's safe to say that these scammers are on a rise considering the sudden spike in spam calls and messages on WhatsApp. What users can do is be aware of such unknown international numbers, and to report and block them on WhatsApp. There's also an in-app spam detection technology that detects any abnormal behaviour. If this doesn't work then users can contact WhatsApp's grievance officer in India.
"We have a grievance officer based in India who can be contacted if a user has a concern about their experience and is unable to report it through other channels. The reports detail user complaints received and the corresponding action taken by WhatsApp, as well as WhatsApp's own preventive actions to combat abuse on the platform," WhatsApp was quoted as saying to CNBC TV 18.
WhatsApp is also integrating Truecaller on the app to help identify potential spam numbers so this should help in mitigating the issue.