WhatsApp is easily one of the biggest social media platforms across the world. While it makes texting and connecting with friends, family, colleagues, and other people easier, it has its fair share of disadvantages as well. WhatsApp is being used as a tool by many fraudsters to collect one time passwords (OTPs) from strangers and loot their hard-earned money. A lot of people have been scammed already. One simple way to safeguard yourself from such frauds is being aware. More details ahead.
WhatsApp OTP Scam, How Does it Happen and How You Can Protect Yourself
The fraudsters in WhatsApp will pose as normal fellow citizens to you. They will text that they have accidentally sent their 6 digit OTP to you and will request that you give it to them. If you give the 6 digit code to them, they will be able to complete the money transaction and you will lose your hard-earned money. To safeguard yourself from such frauds, just be alert. Never give your sensitive information to anyone through WhatsApp or any other online medium. This includes even people that you know and trust, don’t give them any sensitive information blindly. These scammers have also learnt to take over your WhatsApp account via WhatsApp Web on their browser and then extract all the numbers from your contacts. They would further pose as your friend to these contacts and ask them for sensitive information. There is one more thing that you can do to protect your WhatsApp account from being hacked. It is activating ‘Two Factor Authentication’. Here is how you can do it. First, go to the ‘WhatsApp Settings’. Then tap on ‘Account > Two-step verification > Enable. You will be prompted to enter a six-digit PIN code after that. You can also add an email address or skip it if you want. Then tap on the ‘Next’ button followed by ‘Save’ or ‘Done’. One more thing that you should keep in mind is that there is no one way for these fraudsters to scam you. You need to be on your toes and understand that there are multiple ways in which scammers can get you.
