What's up with this "Please add me on WhatsApp" robocall spam?

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/05/whats-up-with-this-please-add-me-on-whatsapp-robocall-spam/

by edent • 1 year ago

24 13 1 year ago

As with all power laws, my guess is that this kind of incredibly low quality robocalling is being done on a MASSIVE scale by a single digit number of orgs globally - someone somewhere has figured out an essentially bulletproof way to do scam robocalling, number validation and so on on a gigantic scale, such that the quality matters less. I wonder how much global productivity in terms of time spent paying attention to incoming calls or texts would increase if you bonked whoever is orchestrating such a scheme.

MrBuddyCasino• 1 year ago

What is even the purpose of this? I suspect it is to add credibility to these profiles so they won’t trigger automated fraud systems and can be sold or used for something else.

Apreche• 1 year ago

My guess is pig butchering. The kind of person who responds to this is likely lonely, desperate, and foolish. Sure, the conversion rate probably isn’t high, but it doesn’t have to be. The cost to spam these out is low and just a few hits is enough. The same math spam has been using forever.

Gualdrapo• 1 year ago

Chiming in because it happened yesterday and it's the first time I see something like that. I got one of these via SMS - and I'm not even in the USA or something. They used a six-digit number to send it (starting with 8; they use those here to send corporate mass/spam SMSs) but in the text they ask to add a regular phone number to WhatsApp.

Caelus9• 1 year ago

I often get added to random WhatsApp groups by strangers. I usually just leave right away. Sometimes I do wonder what the goal is. Do people really fall for this kind of thing in group chats? And same with these random calls or emails. How many people are actually fooled? Maybe it's just about testing if a number is active, or maybe they’re quietly building some kind of identity data set behind the scenes.

ageitgey3• 1 year ago

On reddit, the /r/scams community is a fascinating one to follow to both track what the common scams are right now and to also see just the unending, massive wave of them working over and over.

Based on what is popular right now, it's probably lead generation for one of these scams:

1. I have a bunch of crypto for you sitting in an account. You can even log in to the crypto exchange and see your balance, transfer money, etc! You just have to pay a small fee to extract it. (The whole crypto exchange site is fake, and all the balances are imaginary.)

2. I have a part-time job offer for you where you get paid $2-$5 per post to like Instagram posts for my clients who want publicity. Working from home, you do it for a day or two and really get paid $300! You like easy money and keep doing it. You build up a balance of $5000 for your next payment, but now you need to pay a $150 fee to transfer that money out. (The job was totally fake, there is no ad agency, the first $300 you got was stolen money directly from other victims. People get really hooked because they are already convinced it was real and get taken for 10s of thousands.)

3. Wow, your art/photo/profile pic/etc. is so beautiful, and I want to paint it. Can I pay you a commission to use your work? Here's $2,500! Oops, I sent too much. Can you send me back $500? (The check was fake, and you will lose any money you send when the check bounces.)

The first two are the most popular right now because so many people fall for them and get so deep. Scammers need a constant feed of contacts to pull them off. People answering the phone during the day probably need some easy money. For the scammer, it doesn't matter if you have to robocall 1000 people to find one victim. It's just more free money.

addaon• 1 year ago

1. I have a bunch of crypto for you sitting in an account. You can even log in to the crypto exchange and see your balance, transfer money, etc! You just have to pay a small fee to extract it. (The whole crypto exchange site is fake, and all the balances are imaginary.)

It seems like there's another approach here, with a real exchange for a real shitcoin. Generating the shitcoin doesn't cost the operator anything, and if it accidentally ends up worth something, okay, fine, that's the normal crypto scam. But meanwhile, I bet a huge portion of the people who actually create an account to take ownership of the coins use credentials that they've used elsewhere... which seems pretty high value.

ageitgey3• 1 year ago

Sure, but that's a lot more work than just cloning your fake crypto exchange site tenplate for the 100th time to a new domain. These scammers aren't geniuses. They are all about quick turnarounds.

karmakurtisaani• 1 year ago

Working from home, you do it for a day or two and really get paid $300! You like easy money and keep doing it. You build up a balance of $5000 for your next payment, but now you need to pay a $150 fee to transfer that money out.

But wait, you're still up $150 here? I assume the numbers were somehow wrong?

ageitgey3• 1 year ago

The numbers are just examples, but you'll get 1-2 real withdraws before you start losing money. The sunk cost and feeling it was legit before is part of the scam to get you to big numbers. You might only get sent a small part of the balance for your fee and then get hit up for more to get the whole balance. All the while, the imaginary total in your account keeps going up, so you keep getting hooked deeper.

And even if you bail after the first withdrawal and actually make a profit, all you've done is stolen money from another victim and may eventually get your bank account flagged for fraud or money laundering.

jaoane• 1 year ago

What this guy doesn’t understand is that there are places like Spain (where this scam is widespread) where people are starved for jobs, have WhatsApp installed, and know how to open a new conversation on WhatsApp. That sorta changes everything.

bxclltkfz• 1 year ago

A while ago I responded to all of these, played along, and I made over $200 of bitcoin. Probably not worth my time but it was fun. I also sent tracking links, most of them are from China, but many of them operate in the US in New York. On of them told me she signed a “contract” to work America only to be stuck there and not be able to leave. If its true I hope they do something about it, in the meantime I will collect my free bitcoin. Know that once you accumulate on their lists, they become more persistent.

vb66• 1 year ago

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What's up with this "Please add me on WhatsApp" robocall spam?

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