Is it a friend in need, or is it a scam targeting your fear and empathy? That’s what WhatsApp users are being forced to determine after waves of suspicious messages have appeared on the popular messaging app.
People are being told to be careful and cautious of messages and texts from friends or loved ones claiming that they are in need.
The new awareness campaign was launched by WhatsApp and the UK’s National Trading Standards titled “Stop. Think. Call.” According to a recent report, nearly 60 percent of people have received either a scam text in the past year, or know someone else who has.
The campaign aims to prevent scamming victims by educating people on how to protect themselves and their accounts from being hijacked.
The campaign asks people to “stop” and take time to respond, turning on two-step verification, and knowing your privacy settings; “think” about whether it makes sense, or if they’re asking for money, and to remember that scammers prey on kindness; and “call” your friend or family member in order to verify that it is actually them, and if they do not answer, to request a voice note with the same messaging. Otherwise, report it to Action Fraud.
WhatsApp executives have emphasized that their messaging service has end-to-end encryption, but that some of the responsibility lies in the hands of the users, and they need to ensure they keep accounts safe from scammers.
While WhatsApp is incredibly popular in the UK, it is growing in popularity in the US as well. There are 75.1 million WhatsApp users in the U.S. WhatsApp was not historically popular in the states, especially compared to the rest of the world.
The reason being that in the US, sending SMS texts and iMessages has been essentially free for decades, whereas this is not the case in the rest of the world, and WhatsApp provided a free messaging service.
Half of the UK’s population uses WhatsApp, at 30.1 million users.
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