WhatsApp: Stay Away From This Message from Amazon.in To Protect Yourself

The Click-bait scheme

Some cyber frauds are exploiting the festive season sales on Amazon.in and Flipkart to hack users’ information. Particularly, they are circulating a message on WhatsApp claiming a discount is offering up to 99 percent for several items. This message comes with a call to action "Shop now" suspicious link, a common phishing scheme and users must not click on it.

What if you click?

In fact, rather than a legit link, it is just a blogspot.com link under the name “Amazon Big Billion” offer. There is one tiny hole, in case you may notice, is that only Flipkart uses the phrase “Big Billion” but Amazon.in doesn’t. If you click on the link, it will redirect you to a fake Amazon page, where there are many deals, starting from Rs 10. As you pick an item, you will be asked to provide certain personal data such as names, email address and address. Next, in order to “place order”, you will have to invite at least ten friends as the page requests, highlighting “because we want to make it the greatest give away of the year (i.e., Diwali Offer).” If you do not invite your friends, you cannot move on to complete the purchase. But it doesn’t matter as your personal data has already come to the miscreant.

Users who get this message are advised to not click on the link or forward it to other contacts. Even though the fake web does not require payment information like banking details or credit card information, users should be extra cautious when giving data to any random page. Previously, scammers made a similar fraud, but with KBC (Kaun Banega Crorepati). The scammers send a broadcast message on WhatsApp, claiming the receiver had won a quiz on KBC online and requested for their tax amount via online bank transfers. This scam occurs every year during the aired time of the show.