Meta bans 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts linked to scam operations

A security expert said in a video accompanying Meta’s blog post that users should pause before responding to messages on internet platforms, noting that scammers often create a fake sense of urgency to get people to respond quickly. Photo / Getty Images

Meta said today that it had banned more than 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts this year linked to scam operations.

A wave of criminal activity on the internet has wrangled billions of dollars out of victims’ savings.

Scam accounts were often linked to criminal centres across Southeast Asia, where they run multiple operations at one time, from fraudulent crypto investments to pyramid schemes.

Meta warned users that the operations often ask targets to pay up-front to get promised returns or earnings.

Later, scammers sometimes show their victims how much they have already “earned” before asking them to deposit even more money into the scam, according to the company.

Between January and June, Meta used technical signals to identify many of the fraudulent accounts on the encrypted messaging platform before they were able to execute their scams, the company said.

Meta also said it will introduce a new safety overview that prompts users when someone who is not in their contact lists adds them to a WhatsApp group.

Meta’s scam disclosures arrive as United States federal authorities warn that people are losing more money to increasingly sophisticated scams.

In March, the Federal Trade Commission reported consumers lost more than US$12.5 billion ($21.2b) to fraud in 2024 - a 25% increase over the year before.

While the number of reported scams stayed stable, the percentage of people who lost money from them increased by double digits, according to the FTC.

Some of the most commonly reported lures included government impostor scams, online shopping issues, fraudulent business and job opportunities, and fake investment-related schemes.

“Scammers’ tactics are constantly evolving,” said Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement.

Rachel Tobac, a hacker and chief executive of SocialProof Security, said in a video accompanying Meta’s blog post that users should pause before responding to messages on internet platforms, noting that scammers often create a fake sense of urgency to get people to respond quickly.

“These scammers prey on people’s kindness, desperation or fears that they could be in trouble if they don’t send the money fast,” she said.

Meta said scammers often try to get their victims to use multiple internet platforms to prevent tech companies from obtaining knowledge about the full extent of their operations.

In one case, Meta and OpenAI disrupted a network of accounts connected to a Cambodia-based scam operation that was targeting potential victims with a rent-a-scooter pyramid scheme and fraudulent crypto investment.

The operation used ChatGPT to generate a text message link to a WhatsApp chat, where they were quickly routed to a Telegram. From there, they were instructed to like videos on TikTok, according to the company.