WhatsApp Honey Trap Scam: Many people have become bankrupt due to this scam, know how to avoid it!
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In the modern age of the internet and online work culture, where many difficult tasks have become easy, it has also become very easy for people to cheat, commit fraud and grab their money from others. Every day, cybercriminals keep inventing new ways to cheat and blackmail people through online mediums.
WhatsApp is becoming a platform for cybercriminals, through which they easily carry out various scams. One such new WhatsApp scam is called WhatsApp Honey Trap Scam. From its name itself, you must have got an idea of how people are tricked through this scam. Let us explain in detail how the WhatsApp honey trap scam works and how users can avoid it.
How does the WhatsApp honey trap scam work?
Step 1: For this scam, scammers create a fake profile on WhatsApp with beautiful and attractive pictures of girls, so that users start thinking of replying to their messages immediately after seeing them. However, if users carefully look at the display picture of such fake profiles, they can understand that the profile is fake.
Step 2: Scammers initiate messages through the fake profile and slowly escalate the conversation. Initially, scammers show very friendly behaviour to win the trust of the users. During this time, scammers make flirtatious remarks to users, gaining their trust through charm.
Step 3: After gaining the trust of the users, scammers use the next trick to trap them. They start audio and video calls. They continue their friendly behavior and within a few days establish a girlfriend-boyfriend or husband-wife relationship with the user.
Step 4: After a few days, scammers try to put users in a situation where they can be blackmailed later. For example, scammers may record private moments with users during romantic video calls.
Step 5: Based on this recording, the scammers later blackmail the user. They threaten to share video clips of the user's private moments with their friends, relatives or the public on social media if the money is not received or their demands are not met.
After that, the user becomes a victim of blackmail and sends lakhs or billions of rupees to the scammer and continues to fulfil their other demands. It is noteworthy that we have mentioned only one method of blackmailing in our article. Scammers can create a blackmail situation by using many other methods.
How to avoid such scams?
Users need to be extremely cautious to avoid such scams:
- Users should always be cautious about contacting any unknown number online.
- If it is necessary to make contact, users should double-check the number to ensure they know who they are talking to.
- Users should not share their personal information with anyone on WhatsApp.
- Users should not receive video calls from any unknown number, as they can easily become targets through these.
If something like this happens to any user, they can report the scam on WhatsApp or even file a police complaint. Furthermore, the Government of India has recently launched a new web portal called "Cyber Eye" to lodge complaints about such online frauds. Users can also complain about scams or fraudulent attempts on this platform of the Government of India.