WhatsApp fraud involving Nespresso

The National Institute of Cybersecurity (INCIBE) has warned that a WhatsApp campaign doing the rounds offering you the chance to win a Nespresso coffee machine, is a fraud.

The WhatsApp message is in the form of a survey that enters you into a competition to win the coffee machine, however those behind the scam are purely looking to steal personal information that can later be used to commit fraud.

Once the survey is completed you are then asked to forward the message on to friends and family, after which you will be entered into the competition to win the Nespresso machine.

To complete the survey you are given three chances to win, the first the agency says will always result in system failure. You are then given a second chance at which point you are told that you have won the prize. The system then asks you to share the survey with others so they too can have a chance to win a coffee machine, and you are then also provided with the chance to complete other surveys all of which are designed to collect information from you.

The registration screen includes a text box with small print in which information about the alleged promoter company is provided. Due to its size, it goes unnoticed and, because the rest of the screens do have the Nespresso logo, most of the victims end up sending their personal data believing that it is a promotional campaign of the brand.

INCIBE have once again warned people to be aware of such fraudulent campaigns and not to click on links unless you know their origin, or were expecting to receive such a link. In all cases it is always better to go directly to the company’s site and to proceed from there, rather than to use links in WhatsApp and email messages.

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