{"id":79016,"date":"2015-01-21T10:05:56","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T08:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/germistoncitynews.co.za\/?p=79016"},"modified":"2015-01-21T12:11:32","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T10:11:32","slug":"whatsapp-users-warned-alert-latest-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/news-headlines\/2015\/01\/21\/whatsapp-users-warned-alert-latest-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp users are warned to be alert of the latest \u2018scam\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WhatsApp users have been warned about the latest scam doing the rounds.<\/p>\n<p>This scam could see users paying R210 per month without even noticing.<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p>IT consultant Liron Segev from TheTechieGuy said on his blog recently that users usually update their WhatsApp application at least once every three months and cyber criminals had picked up on the necessary upgrade.<\/p>\n<p>He claims that cyber criminals now send WhatsApp users an SMS with a link to upgrade the application, but the link redirects users to a different website.<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWhile in the website, users will assume that they are upgrading their WhatsApp, but in reality, they have unknowingly registered with a subscription service that costs R7 per day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of the month a user can be charged about R210 for just using WhatsApp.<\/p>\n<p>It is alleged that users unknowingly subscribe for an app called Buddiechat.<\/p>\n<p>Vodacom spokesman Richard Boorman said that the company had set up a crowd-sourcing \u201cscams tab\u201d on its Facebook page where people could post suspicious SMSes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe received information goes straight to our fraud and risk team who then investigate and block any numbers involved with scams.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We also post the most recent scams so that people can see some of the common fraudulent SMSes doing the rounds,\u201d Boorman expalined.<\/p>\n<p>Boorman said that the service provider would act against other service providers trying to circumvent the rules.<\/p>\n<p>This would include revoking the supplier\u2019s access to the network and customers.<\/p>\n<p>My Broadband issued the following tips to unsubscribe from a wireless application service provider (wasp):<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Cell C: Dial *133*1#. Subscribers can block all existing and future content billing.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 MTN: Dial *141*5# and select which services to unsubscribe from.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Vodacom: Vodacom users can unsubscribe from all Wasp services by sending \u201cSTOP ALL\u201d to 30333.<\/p>\n<p>Have you received any suspicious SMSes you believed were a scam?<\/p>\n<div class=\"stream-item stream-item-below-post-content\">\n<div class='tenancy_slot tenancy_slot_1 jannah_ad' style='display: none;' data-query-id='f8299a160b4b8f361b92e9e0dab682e1'><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beware of the new WhatsApp \u2018scam\u2019 which could see you spending R210 a month without even noticing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":79017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,508,2],"tags":[8297,989,1012,1003,1106,979,969,2730,1447],"class_list":["post-79016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-crime-news","category-editors-choice","category-news-headlines","tag-community-2","tag-crime","tag-east-rand","tag-ekurhuleni","tag-gcn","tag-germiston","tag-germiston-city-news","tag-leigh-hodgson","tag-scam"],"amp_enabled":true,"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Crime News"},"tag_labels":["community","crime","East Rand","Ekurhuleni","GCN","germiston","germiston city news","Leigh Hodgson","scam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/557"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}