How to Protect Yourself From Seven Common WhatsApp Scams

Most typical WhatsApp scams aren’t high-tech security breaches. They aren’t orchestrated by state-sponsored hacker groups with a bottomless wallet and military-grade technology. In fact, most of them are run by low-tech crime syndicates relying on social engineering techniques to take advantage of people’s blind spots and trust in others.

Meta removed 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts associated with cyber crime and digital scams just in the second half of 2025. But the attacks show no sign of slowing down because they are low on cost and easy to spin up, with chatbots executing most of the legwork on autopilot. However, there’s a flip side to all this: social engineering only works when you don’t know what to look for.

Most of these scams follow a specific playbook and have a similar pattern of execution. If you know what to watch out for, you can stop them before they compromise your data or lead you into a financial trap. Below are seven of the most common scams that WhatsApp cybercriminals like to run, with tips on how to safely avoid every one of them.

The Verification Code Hijack

This is the most dangerous WhatsApp scam on this list, because it locks you out of your entire account and puts it in the hands of the attacker. It’s also one of the simplest to execute.

Here’s how it works: A scammer enters your phone number on WhatsApp to log into your account using their device. This triggers WhatsApp to send a verification code to your registered phone number. Right on cue, someone pretending to be a friend or family member texts you with a request to share the verification code you just received, under some false premise. If you hand over that code, WhatsApp will log you out of your current device and transfer access of your account to the attacker, who can then do whatever they want with it, including changing all your credentials.

Avoiding this attack is equally simple. Just don’t share your WhatsApp verification code with anyone over a call or text, even if it seems to come from someone in your contact list. If you receive a message from WhatsApp with a new verification code, take it as a sign that someone is attempting to hijack your account — don’t assume it’s a glitch.

Also make it a point to enable 2-step verification on your WhatsApp account as a standard practice, by navigating to Settings > Account > Two-step verification in the Android or iOS app. That way, an attacker with a stolen verification code won’t be able to get into your account right away, because they will also need to verify the request using your preferred authentication method.

Faking an Emergency

Once an attacker has access to someone’s WhatsApp account — often by doing exactly as described above — they will fire off a string of messages from that compromised account to everyone in the victim’s contact list. They will pretend to be the victim in some kind of medical or financial emergency, then ask people to send money as quickly as possible.

Citing an emergency creates panic, which makes people less likely to verify the authenticity of the request. By the time the original victim gets around to alerting others that their account has been hijacked, multiple people have already been scammed. Scammers will sometimes even use AI-generated voice messages to make the request seem legitimate, particularly if they already know what the real account holder sounds like.

Never transfer funds or honor a sensitive request sent over text without double-checking whether it’s real. When you get a request like this on WhatsApp, call that person directly using a known contact number that hasn’t been recently changed. If the requester claims the number has changed or the phone is out of battery, that’s a red flag. If you’re genuinely worried the request might be authentic, call someone else who lives near that person or go verify in person.

Long-Term Digital Romance Scams

WhatsApp is a popular choice for online dating scams thanks to its widespread use as a messaging service, but these scams rarely give themselves away at first. Instead, attackers spend months building rapport with a potential victim over long chains of text and audio messages.

When they’re confident about the level of trust they’ve established, the asks begin. First, they request small transfers under $100, citing something urgent but non-critical. Slowly, the requests grow in financial value until the victim realizes something is wrong and calls it off. Family emergencies, personal cash flow issues, and investment offers in cryptocurrency or private funds are commonly used to pressure victims into sending money.

If someone you have never met in person asks you for cash, that is an immediate sign that something is wrong. Normal people rarely ask someone for money unless they know them well in person, so treat any such request with caution.

Premium App Subscription Invites

This is a very common tactic that is especially popular when targeting demographics with low digital literacy. You receive a private message from what looks like an official WhatsApp account claiming that you’ve been invited to try out a new subscription tier not available to the general public. Often, the message includes a link to download and install an app from an unknown source. As soon as you click the link, it installs malware on your device — ranging from ransomware to keyloggers — which can then be used for blackmail or further cyberattacks.

If you receive a message inviting you to WhatsApp Gold, WhatsApp Premium, or any other subscription tier that cannot be verified through official sources, do not click the link.

Also avoid installing apps that don’t come from official sources like Google Play or the App Store, unless you explicitly trust the developer sending you the link. Apps installed from third-party links are not subject to the security audits that official marketplaces require, which increases the risk of malware infection. Most smartphones disable third-party app installation by default for exactly this reason.

If you want to be even safer, navigate to Settings > Privacy > Advanced inside WhatsApp and toggle on Disable link previews. While link previews in WhatsApp are generally safe, they can expose your device’s metadata and general geolocation to the website administrator for a brief period, which can be exploited to escalate more sophisticated cyberattacks.

Impersonating Popular Service Providers

A common pattern among WhatsApp scams is the use of official names and logos to impersonate service providers and trusted authorities, such as banks, delivery services, tech support, and sometimes even local law enforcement. Since people are more likely to trust messages that appear to come from these sources without further verification, it gives attackers the opening they need to make otherwise unreasonable requests.

If someone claims to be a bank employee who needs you to share a one-time password for a security check, offer to call them back using a known official number rather than continuing the conversation in the same thread. Legitimate institutions will never ask for passwords, PINs, or verification codes over chat, and any message pressuring you to act immediately should be treated as a scam.