Latest news with #pyramidschemes
France 24
5 days ago
- Business
- France 24
Meta says working to thwart WhatsApp scammers
"Our team identified the accounts and disabled them before the criminal organizations that created them could use them," WhatsApp external affairs director Clair Deevy said. Often run by organized gangs, the scams range from bogus cryptocurrency investments to get-rich-quick pyramid schemes, WhatsApp executives said in a briefing. "There is always a catch and it should be a red flag for everyone: you have to pay upfront to get promised returns or earnings," Meta-owned WhatsApp said in a blog post. WhatsApp detected and banned more than 6.8 million accounts linked to scam centers, most of them in Southeast Asia, according to Meta. WhatsApp and Meta worked with OpenAI to disrupt a scam traced to Cambodia that used ChatGPT to generate text messages containing a link to a WhatsApp chat to hook victims, according to the tech firms. Meta on Tuesday began prompting WhatsApp users to be wary when added to unfamiliar chat groups by people they don't know. New "safety overviews" provide information about the group and tips on spotting scams, along with the option of making a quick exit. "We've all been there: someone you don't know attempting to message you, or add you to a group chat, promising low-risk investment opportunities or easy money, or saying you have an unpaid bill that's overdue," Meta said in a blog post.
CNET
5 days ago
- CNET
WhatsApp Adds Tools to Save You From Scams
WhatsApp, the popular messaging service, says it's cracking down on millions of accounts linked to scam networks and providing users new tools to alert them when they might be targeted. In a post, the Meta-owned service says it took down more than 6.8 million accounts linked to scam networks primarily based in Southeast Asia. WhatsApp said that many of them are driven by cryptocurrency investment scams and pyramid schemes, and that some use ChatGPT to generate text and links that may send users to other apps. WhatsApp says that for users, it's adding new safeguards to group messaging and individual messages that will warn users when someone who's not in their contacts list tries to initiate a chat or add a user to a group messaging thread. Overall, the service is advising that users take more time to consider responding to a chat request and to verify whether someone trying to contact them is who they say they are. Using a secondary form of communication is one way to do that, WhatsApp says: "If they messaged you on WhatsApp, call them on their phone – or if they sent you an SMS, give them a WhatsApp call using the phone number you know is theirs." WhatsApp is the world's most widely-used encrypted messaging app.
Arab News
10-05-2025
- Business
- Arab News
What We Are Reading Today: Little Bosses Everywhere by Bridget Read
In 'Little Bosses Everywhere,' journalist Bridget Read tells the gripping story of multilevel marketing in full for the first time. 'Little Bosses Everywhere' exposes the deceptions of direct-selling companies that make their profit not off customers but off their own sales force. The book lays out an almost prosecutorial case against many multilevel marketing schemes, explaining why regulators need to take the industry seriously, and the larger story it tells about whom the economy has set up to fail. The book 'reads like a thriller as it investigates the birth and growth of this shadowy and sprawling industry that polished up door-to-door sales with a new veneer of all-American entrepreneurialism,' said a review in The New York Times. The book primarily focuses on a broader analysis of pyramid schemes and their history.
