We all heard about Phishing scam, right? I almost got caught in a WhatsApp scam. Read on to know the details.

I am part of my apartment's ladies WhatsApp grp.There are owners (ladies) in it from all over the world & each of us know only a few owners personally. On Jan 4th morning,I was contacted by a lady from America who was also part of that group. Her name was mentioned as Srividya

it was a generic message-HNY- yada yada.
Remember, it was the first working day of this year and we all were busy getting geared up for the work life. I checked her profile at a glance and realised that she was unknown to me.

I have chatted with a couple of other srividyas from the group and one of them had recently changed their phone number. I also searched the WhatsApp group based on the new phone number and saw messages from Nov 2020 enquiring about something.

Assuming it was some srividya, I told her that her message to me must have been a mistake as I do not recognise her. The said person told me they will link me with their personal & professional page and then I will recognise her.

once again searched for all my chats with srividyas and realised that there was one such person who was living in America.
I made my 1st mistake then. Instead of asking for her flat number, I posted asking whether XXX was her flat number. She said yes immediately.

That's when an SMS came to my phone from Whatsapp stating that this is a code for something (in my hurry I forgot to read it fully) and that this code must not be shared with others. Srividya in whatsapp immediately messaged me saying that this was the code to link me to her

Personal and professional page. she said her code was XXXXX and wanted me to share my code with her. I kept asking her for the purpose of this conversation and she insisted on me giving her the code. I re-read the last part of the SMS from WhatsApp and it clearly mentioned

that do not share the code with anyone. I was immediately pulled into alert mode and refused to share any code with her. The person said "okay" and stopped chatting with me. There was a link in that SMS too and it pricked me a lot.

so as a precaution, i deleted that SMS and blocked this person on WhatsApp and here I made my 2nd mistake. I should have dropped a message in our common WhatsApp group about this suspicious person but I did not.

I did not suspect it to be a scam then. I thought it was one of those irritating ladies who wanted likes and views on her home business page so that she can get more business. 3 hours later, one of the group admins informed us all that another admin's WhatsApp account was taken

over by this scammer. She has lost her WhatsApp account and all her access to contacts and chats. She could not get access to her own Whatsapp number. So as a precaution, this admin lady removed each one of us from the group and deleted the group.

The apartment association was informed about this too. I felt bad at allowing this scammer to scam another lady. I should have been more proactive and warned others. I do not know the financial implication of this scam.

But yes privacy aspects are violated. Once this scammer assumes the fake identity,it would be easy to con others in the contacts list. Maybe some people would transfer money assuming it to be a genuine person. Maybe they will get access to passwords & bank account numbers shared

in private WhatsApp chats. I also realised that Whatsapp had launched WhatsApp pay in India so it would have been easier for the scammer to loot some money. I currently do not have WhatsApp pay in my country.

The lesson here is to never share codes. NO MATTER WHAT. be alert always. I have read about many scams and felt foolish about giving away a flat number to the scammer. I'm pretty sure that person used this info to scam the admin.