Fake WhatsApp messages in your company name: protecting customers from scams

The short answer: you cannot stop someone creating a WhatsApp account with your name and your photograph, but you can make it easy for customers to tell which is the real one: publish the official number somewhere that is yours (the site, the invoice, the e-mail), tell them what you never ask of them, and react quickly when someone tells you they received a strange message.

The most common scams

Scam How to recognise it
A cloned account A different number, with your logo and your name, writing to customers. Often asks for an “urgent” or “overdue” payment.
A change of payment details “We have changed account, future payments should go to this one.” The costliest of all.
A fake invoice or notice A link to “view the invoice” or “reactivate the service” that leads to a page asking for details or a password.
Fake support Someone claiming to be support and asking for a password, a verification code or access to the computer.
A fake prize draw “You have won a prize from company X”: asks for personal data or a payment to deliver it.

What to do before it happens

1 Publish the official number on the site, in the e-mail footer, on invoices and in the WhatsApp Business profile. See the WhatsApp button on your site.
2 Tell customers what you never ask for: passwords, verification codes, full card details, installing programs, and changes of payment account by message. One fixed sentence in the invoice footer is enough.
3 Change payment accounts only in writing, on channels the customer knows, and always confirm by another route. Ask those who pay to confirm with you before the first transfer to a new account.
4 Complete the business profile with the website, address and hours, so the customer can compare. See business verification and the green tick.

When it has already happened

1 Keep the evidence: screenshots of the conversation and of the fake profile, with the number, date and time.
2 Report and block the fake account from within the app, and ask customers to report it too. Reports are what make WhatsApp act.
3 Warn customers on every channel that a fake account exists, with the real number clearly shown.
4 If a payment was made, the customer should contact the bank or payment service at once, and file a complaint with the police, with the evidence.
If the scam uses the Interweb name (someone claiming to be our support), never give passwords or codes and install nothing. We do not ask for your password on any channel, and genuine messages can be verified: see how to tell whether an e-mail really came from us. Send us the screenshot through the contact page.
A website and an e-mail on your own domain give the customer something a phone number alone does not: somewhere to check. See WhatsApp for business: the risks, and the practices that avoid them, and if your own number was taken over, what to do if the number was taken over.

Received a strange message claiming to be from Interweb? Send us a screenshot.

Open a support ticket

SEE ALSO

Someone asked for your WhatsApp code or took over the number

Putting WhatsApp on your site: the link, the button and the ready-written message

Meta business verification and the green tick

How to tell whether an e-mail really came from us

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