Agencies | London
The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
A new Whatsapp scam has emerged in various parts of the world, involving scammers pretending to be children of the targets.
The message begins with ‘Hey mum’ or ‘Hey dad’, and typically goes onto say that the child is texting from their new number since their old one is out of commission. They then proceed to ask for money urgently to buy a new phone or pay off bills.
Around €1.8 million has already been scammed from unsuspecting victims in just four months in the UK, according to media reports.
An Irish newspaper reported that in February 2022, Patricia Land from Wales lost €2,600 to one of these scams.
“It was so clever, so so clever,” she told the newspaper. “He texted saying: ‘Hi Mum, my phone has fallen, it’s completely broken, I’ve had to get a new one, can you save this new number’ then some kisses.”
Patricia said she felt “violated” after realising she was the victim of a scam.
Luckily for another woman in Wales, the bank payment she made to her ‘daughter’ didn’t go through.
She received a seemingly natural message saying “Hi mum, it’s your favourite daughter”. So when the person who she assumed was her daughter said she had a standing order of £900 that needed paying, Margaret immediately…
