Police warn of new WhatsApp scam that can ask your family for money without you knowing

Your own WhatsApp account could be messaging your family asking for money right now, yet your phone would show nothing wrong. Police have identified a wave of silent account takeovers in which victims keep using the app normally while scammers message their contacts behind their back.

How criminals get in without ever kicking the owner out 

Investigators believe the fraudsters are exploiting phones and WhatsApp installations that have not been updated with the latest security patches. Once inside an account, the criminal appears to operate alongside the legitimate owner rather than replacing them. Officers say the intrusion often doesn’t show up in the account’s own linked devices list, the usual place to spot an unauthorised session. Victims interviewed by police say they never handed over a verification code, a QR code or any other login detail beforehand. 

The script police say is convincing families to pay 

The fraudulent messages appear inside genuine, ongoing WhatsApp conversations, sent under the real name and photo the contact already trusts. A typical message claims the sender’s phone has broken and a replacement costs somewhere between €950 and €1,000, then asks for a bank transfer to cover it. The account given for the transfer usually belongs to someone else entirely, and in some cases is a foreign account rather than a Spanish one, a detail investigators say is designed to make the request sound like a genuine, slightly awkward favour rather than an outright scam. Because the message arrives in an existing thread, from a name the recipient has spoken to for years, many don’t even think to check.

Cases so far are limited, but the alert is nationwide

The Policía Nacional issued its nationwide warning on Tuesday September 1, after forces across Spain logged a noticeable rise in similar complaints over the past month. Police in Alicante Province say they have recorded only a small number of reports of this specific method locally to date. However, the pattern matters for people well beyond Alicante, as anyone who uses WhatsApp is potentially exposed, regardless of where in Spain they live.

Checks that can catch the scam before any money moves

Police recommend treating any unexpected WhatsApp request for money as suspicious, however familiar the name attached to it, and confirming it by phone call or a different messaging app before sending anything. They are also urging people to update their phone’s operating system and the WhatsApp app itself, turn on two-step verification, and check the linked devices section of WhatsApp’s settings regularly for any session that should not be there. Officers stress that a genuine WhatsApp login code, QR code or two-step PIN should never be shared with anyone, even someone claiming to be a friend, a relative or WhatsApp support.

What to do if an account has already been compromised 

Anyone who suspects their account has been taken over is advised to warn their contacts through a separate channel immediately, since the fraudulent messages will not appear in the victim’s own chat history. WhatsApp’s official support channels can be used to report the impersonation, and police say a formal complaint should also be filed.

Anyone who receives one of these requests, even if it’s from a family member or a best friend, should pick up the phone and call before sending a single euro.