Be Smart and Avoid these New WeChat Scams!

Original GiC Team GICexpat

Recently, there have been reports of new WeChat fraud. Here are a few stories to remind you of the scams that still exist, so that they do not happen to you!

01. WeChat friend Impersonation

On May 22, the Beijiao police station of Shunde District Public Security Bureau in Foshan city, Guangzhou received a call from a woman. This woman reported that 799rmb was taken from her WeChat Wallet by WeChat account "WeChat Security Payment Assistant".

According to Ms. Feng, on the afternoon of May 20th, she received a message from the "Safe Payment Assistant". The messaged said that she had not passed the second name authentication and her account would be frozen.

Ms. Feng also received a link asking her to verify the information. The profile picture and account name looked reliable to her so she clicked on the link. Without much consideration, she quickly entered her personal information for verification.

However, soon after receiving a notice from the bank that there was a payment of 799rmb she realized there was a problem. Ms. Feng immediately called the police.

The police launched an investigation and found that the “Secure Payment Assistant” account was not an official WeChat account, rather just an ordinary WeChat user.

Ms. Feng claims she never accepted or sent a friend request to anyone with this name and after further investigation, police found Ms. Feng had in fact accepted this friend. However, their WeChat ID at the time was "婉儿".

At the time, she thought maybe it was a mutual friend. The original account user never made conversation with her until May 20th when posing as “Safe Payment Assistant”.

02. Delivery Scams

Recently, there have been customer service accounts through delivery services that have added users. They either claim your express package has arrived but they could not reach you for delivery or that your package is lost.

Often times they will say to claim your package, you need to scan a QR code that they send you. The QR code is a payment link.

For your safety, police remind WeChat users that when someone adds you, you should confirm their identity and be careful when providing personal information and scanning QR codes. It’s also suggested to “declutter” your WeChat contacts every so often…spring clean that contact list!

Source: Xinhua

Editor: Crystal Huang

Be Smart and Avoid these New WeChat Scams!

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