Every day there are news reports of individuals falling victim to online investments involving large sums of money. The victims include senior citizens, teachers, engineers and even celebrities. It is clear that online fraud tactics are effective enough to find victims from all walks of life.
Meta is aware that their social media platform is often used as a stage for fraud or scams such as pyramid/ponzi scheme investments. Today they are introducing a new feature in WhatsApp that can help combat this problem.
When a WhatsApp user receives an invitation to join a new group that may be unknown, it will display information about the group such as who invited and whether it is a known person, when the group was formed and the members. Below is information to identify the types of online scams that exist and what security measures can be taken to avoid becoming a victim.
If receiving a private message, Meta will display information about the individual if it is unknown. With the context provided, WhatsApp users can make the choice to interact with the account or continue to block it.
Meta also announced that they had detected and banned 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts involved in online fraud, particularly those based in Southeast Asia.