This is to warn all members of a new scam doing the rounds on WhatsApp in Nigeria promising double in returns for money ‘investment’.
Mr. Oladimeji Lasore, the Principal Administrator and creator of the popular Osun A Dara WhatsApp Group warned members of the public of a new variant of scams involving the takeover of WhatsApp accounts.
The scam, which has been severally posted and checked on the group's platform, involves scammers luring WhatsApp users into sharing screenshots of their verification codes.
The scammers would then take over the user’s WhatsApp account using the information.
In these cases, after taking over a victim’s WhatsApp account, scammers would inform other members that the account number that he has taken over has been changed under the guise of confusing chat group members.
In the month of March, the group received at least 8 reports of scams involving takeover of WhatsApp accounts of members.
The scammer have since taken complete control of the WhatsApp accounts of the affected group members.
Members of the group in those cases received a WhatsApp message from a one of them whose account had been compromised. The message requested them to invest some amount of money ranging from N20,000 to N100,000 while promising that the some time invested will be doubled after 24 hours.
Mr. Lasore therefore advised members of the public not to share their account verification codes with anyone, and to always beware of unusual requests received over WhatsApp, even if they were sent by their own contacts. He cautionedd not do the verification through the social media platform as the account might have been taken over by scammers. "Do the verification by putting direct phone call to your friend or family". He said.
Furthermore he advised WhatsApp users to also enable the application’s two-step verification feature to prevent others from compromising their account.
In the event that an account has been taken over by a scammer, the user can recover the account by signing into their WhatsApp application using their phone number. They can authenticate their log-in attempt by entering the verification PIN which they will receive on their phone.
The scammer who was using their account will be automatically logged out after that.
Lasore said that fraudsters were using social media as a channel to lure in victims under the guise of being money doubling, but they were simply scams.
He warned that he will not take responsibility for any of his group members who is gullible enough to fall victim to pranks of these unrelenting fraudsters.
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