Billions of WhatsApp users warned over sophisticated new scam that takes control of your phone to steal money

WHATSAPP users have been warned to be aware of a sophisticated news scam that takes control of your phone to steal money.

Figures show that the amount of money reported stolen from recruitment scam texts and WhatsApp messages have shot up from £20,000 to nearly £1million in the past year.

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Scammers are targeting their victims through WhatsApp and text messagesCredit: Alamy

City of London Police say there has been an eightfold increase in the number of people reporting these scams to Action Fraud.

Figures from the force reveal 15 people reported being scammed out of £20,040 to Action Fraud in 2022.

In 2023 though, 126 people reported £977,581 being stolen.

The force’s temporary commander Oliver Shaw says this could just be the “tip of the iceberg” as this type of fraud is “hugely underreported”.

Criminals use recruitment scams to lure their victims with promises of extra work or income.

But instead of employment, they are conned in handing over their bank details or the scammers take control of their phones to steal money.

Temporary commander Shaw said you need “a whole-system response across government, law enforcement and industry” in order to tackle fraud effectively.

He said: “Every report we receive from the public helps build a stronger picture of the problem, enabling us not only to investigate fraud more effectively, but to take down the bank accounts, websites and phone numbers used by criminals.”

An expert in the language and phrases fraudsters use to trick their victims says recruitment scams are a high-volume, multi-stage crime.

Dr Lis Carter, a criminologist at Kingston University told the BBC: “These text messages will only be relevant to a certain number of people… but it’s a numbers game.

“Criminals only need a few people to respond and the victims are self selecting.

“Fraudsters will take a victim through several stages, things you’d normally expect a HR department to be asking – name, address, date of birth, bank details.

“All of that stuff is valuable data in itself, so even if that case doesn’t turn into fraud it’s valuable data they can sell on the dark web.”

Activate these 4 WhatsApp settings to stop snoopers

WhatsApp may be a pretty sure way to keep in contact with your friends but there are extra steps you can take for added privacy.

Setup two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication is very useful to have setup on any device that contains personal data like photos and messages.

It just means adding an extra security step before you can access an app or device.

Open WhatsApp, go to Settings, then click “Two-Step Verification”.

The click “Enable” and enter a PIN of your choose.

This is useful if your phone is hacked or if someone knows the password to your handset but not your WhatsApp PIN.

Turn off read receipts

This step is useful if you don’t want people to know you’ve read their message.

It just means if you do open a message, the person who sent it won’t see two blue ticks to indicate you’ve seen it.

Go to Settings, click “Privacy” and then turn the “Read Receipts” toggle off.

This means you won’t be able to see if other people have read your messages.

Bear in mind that read receipts are always visible on group chats.

Use Face Lock

WhatsApp has a Face ID feature that means you can only unlock the app with your own face.

To turn it on, go to Settings, click “Privacy and then “Screen Lock”.

You’ll see a “Require Face ID” toggle that you can turn on and off.

There’s also a message that explains: “When enabled, you’ll need to use Face ID to unlock WhatsApp.

“You can still reply to messages from notifications and answer calls if WhatsApp is locked.”

Make your encryption secure

WhatsApp is already encrypted so your messages are already pretty safe.

This means only you and the chat you’re sending messages to can see the conversation unless they happen to be ‘screenshotting’.

However, if you back up your chats to the cloud then they aren’t protected in the same way.

Law enforcement could ask Google or Apple for access to your backed up chats and there’s a chance they could be handed over.

Alternatively, a hacker could enter your cloud backup.

To turn off cloud backup go to Settings, then click “Chats”, “Chat Backup”, “Auto Backup” and then turn the toggle off.

Dr Carter said scammers may initially ask for a small amount of money upfront, which they say will be reimbursed in their first pay packet for what could be genuine reasons, such as DBS checks or security checks, and once the victim is invested, they can throw more good money after bad.

But the real payoff is in stealing large amounts of money by obtaining bank and card details, or taking control of your phone or computer, by promising to help them work remotely.

The warning comes after 18-year-old student Bella Betterton fell victim to a recruitment scam, losing £3,000.

Bella, from Devon, contacted Radio 4’s Money Box after she became a victim in October.

She is hoping to start a five-year biochemistry degree next year so has taken a gap year to try to save up £10,000 to be able to afford to start studying.

The £3,000 that was stolen was all the money she had saved working full-time over the summer.

She said: “I’d just lost a job I’d had for three years and was trying to find my feet again to be able to keep saving for uni.

“I’d put my CV out there so thought it [the scam text message]… was a legitimate thing.”

The scam was so advanced that the criminals bombarded Bella with dozens of messages and phone calls until they had what they needed.

They then used all the details they’d tricked out of her, along with what she suspects was malware put on her phone, to make four large card payments to a cryptocurrency exchange using her money.

She said that when she noticed the payments she felt “shock” and “panic” and didn’t know what to do as she had never experienced anything like it.

Bella added: “I felt quite attacked by it. It was three months’ of work, the whole summer, 50 to 55-hour weeks. So I was pretty distraught and upset by it all.”

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Bella Betterton lost all the money she had spent months saving upCredit: BBC