{"id":120557,"date":"2022-04-07T08:59:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T08:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/?p=120557"},"modified":"2023-08-28T11:24:05","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T11:24:05","slug":"scam-whatsapp-text-warning-messages-pretending-to-be-from-a-family-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/scam-whatsapp-text-warning-messages-pretending-to-be-from-a-family-member\/","title":{"rendered":"Scam WhatsApp Text Warning &#8211; Messages pretending to be from a family member"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ComReg has become aware of recent WhatsApp scam text messages being sent to consumers.<\/p>\n<p>These messages appear to be targeting parents and purporting to be from their children or other family members.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the warning signs to look out for are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The messages come from a unfamiliar number<\/li>\n<li>The sender is purporting to be a family member<\/li>\n<li>The sender is asking for help to buy a new phone<\/li>\n<li>The series of messages leads to the person asking for bank card details to purchase a new phone<\/li>\n<li>The sender says they cannot call and can only text.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We remind consumers to be vigilant and to be wary of these kinds of messages, especially from a number you are not familiar with.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-120548\" src=\"\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-1-300x99.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"99\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-1-300x99.png 300w, https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-1.png 705w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-120549\" src=\"\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-2-300x83.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"83\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-2-300x83.png 300w, https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-2.png 705w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-3.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-120550\" src=\"\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-3-300x162.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"162\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-3-300x162.png 300w, https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-3.png 708w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-4.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-120551\" src=\"\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-4-300x83.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"83\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-4-300x83.png 300w, https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/media\/2022\/04\/Scam-WhatsApp-Text-Apr-2022-4.png 709w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Further information <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>SMS Spoofing or Smishing is when a number texting you has been faked by a scammer and appears to be a text from a genuine number. \u201cSmishing\u201d is a combination of the words \u2018SMS\u2019 and \u2018phishing\u2019 (scam emails designed to gain your trust and encourage you to share information) and is where text messages are sent to trick you into clicking on a malicious attachment or link.<\/p>\n<p>Our <a href=\"\/consumer-information\/home-phone\/scam-calls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scam Calls page<\/a> has information on what you should look out for and how to identify scam text messages.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ComReg has become aware of recent WhatsApp scam text messages being sent to consumers. These messages appear to be targeting parents and purporting to be &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/scam-whatsapp-text-warning-messages-pretending-to-be-from-a-family-member\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":120547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-consumer-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comreg.ie\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}