In this era of cybercrimes, the social media has become a huge gate fraudsters use to swindle money from users of several platforms.
Complaints about people who swindle money through social media have echoed in the ears of security officers and they have issued an alert.
This morning, the national police said; “with the growing number of social media users, especially WhatsApp, we would like to caution the public against fraudsters who may take advantage of social media to swindle money from unsuspecting victims.”
Through twitter, the national police shared some tricks those people use and how the public can prevent them from stealing their money.
The police said that first, Criminals have found opportunities in using victims’ WhatsApp Identity in order to commit fraud (lending money on behalf of the victim through money transfer. They install WhatsApp on their smartphone using the victim’s mobile number and wait for the account to be verified.
Then, in order to get the verification code, fraudsters calls the victim claiming that there is a message mistakenly delivered to the victim by WhatsApp and therefore need to be sent back to them. Once in possession of the verification code, they gain control of the victim’s account.
At that stage, fraudsters choose a contact on victim’s contact list (either in chat history or group members) and write to them requesting to transfer money to a third party number.
Police further shared tips to avoid being a victim of WhatsApp identity theft.
One should enable WhatsApp two step verification and in any circumstance “do not share the content of SMS received from WhatsApp (confirmation code).”
You should also lock your WhatsApp and always logout from from WhatsApp Web.
However, at any stage of an possible incident, police promise to intervene.
“In case there is a person requesting that verification/confirmation code, your WhatsApp Account is already stolen and you cannot send or receive messages; always quickly notify the Rwanda Police Cyber Security Directorate on 0788311087 or 0788311525 and 112,” reads police announcement.
“Notify WhatsApp group admins to remove your number from the groups and notify group members that your account has been compromised. You may also send an SMS to all contacts notifying them to ignore any WhatsApp message that originates from the number you were using.”
