WeChat has become the must-have mobile phone app.
However, some fraudsters are taking advantage of the platform.
Via some particularly ingenious scams, your money may be stolen within a few seconds through WeChat.
Recently, a new WeChat scam came to light. Fraudsters usually start by asking you for your phone number. The Following is a simple outline of the scam.
After rebooting my phone, I lost your mobile phone number. Send me your number so that I can add you to my contacts.
Then, be extra vigilant if they ask for a verification code sent to your phone after getting your phone number since it may be the means to access your wechat and then steal your money.
After rebooting my phone, I lost your mobile phone number. Send me your number so that I can add you to my contacts.
Can you receive the verification code that I sent? I need the verification from my friends so that I can log in.
After receiving the message, I felt suspicious. Since he had sent the verification code through the number 130**** rather than my friend’s number 186****** . I sent him a random number and asked him to call me. But he never called. At that moment, I realized that it was a fraud. And after that, my friend told me that his WeChat had been hacked.
In this way, the cheaters can log in to your WeChat, transfer your money to their account and even worse, cheat your friends to potentially gain even more money.
A simple experiment with two mobile phone, in this example labeled A and B, can help to illustrate this new scam.
Firstly, B logs in to WeChat using A’s phone number. Since B does not know the password, he selects "SMS verification code log in". Via the process outlined above, as long as B can get the verification code from A, B can log in to A’s WeChat.
Next, B immediately changes A’s WeChat password. The whole process takes only one minute. After hacking, in addition to stealing money directly from A’s account, B can also cheat a great number of people from A’s WeChat contacts.
In addition to this well thought-out trap, frandsters often make use of the search for nearby people function.
Mr. Zheng from Yueqing in Zhejiang Province said that on New Year's Day, he received the message from his wife on WeChat. She asked him to send her a little pocket money so that she could show it off on her moments. Without hesitation, he transferred 520 yuan to his wife.
Can you give me some money so that I can show it off on my moments.
However, after transferring money, he was blocked by his 『wife』. Mr. Zheng then realized that he had been scammed.
After police investigation, they found out it had been a certain Mr. Hu who had taken advantage of the 「search for nearby people」 function to conduct the crime.
Hu added Mr. Cheng on WeChat as a friend by pretending to be a woman. Then he looked through Cheng’s WeChat moments to ferret out the profile pic and name of Cheng’s wife. Mr. Hu then changed his WeChat portrait to be the same as Mr. Cheng’s wife, and began the whole exchange.
It’s safe to say social media scams have become a risk of our modern age, and we need be more vigilant than ever using social media going forward.
Author | Jecelyn & Keane
Editor | Simon