What suspicious messages look like

Some clues might indicate you’ve received a suspicious message, or that the sender can’t be trusted. Look out for these signs:

• Typos or grammatical mistakes
• Asking you to tap on a link, activate a new feature through a link, or download an app
• Asking you to share your personal information, like credit card or bank account numbers, birth date, or passwords
• Asking you to forward a message
• Asking for money or claiming that you have to pay to use WhatsApp
• The scammer pretends they're someone you know
• The message is about the lottery, gambling, a job, an investment, or a loan
• The person starts chatting with you to gain your trust before asking for personal information

When you receive messages from someone who is not in your contacts, we will show you signals in the message that you can use to determine how to respond. These signals will let you know if they're your contact if you have groups in common, and if their phone number is registered in a different country. From there, you can decide if you should reply, add them as a contact, block them or report them.

To keep in mind
If a message looks suspicious or sounds too good to be true, don't tap, share, or forward it. If you identify a suspicious message.
Pause and think
Look out for suspicious behavior:
Are they using an unknown number?
Are they rushing you?
Are they being threatening or asking you to trust them?
Are they asking you to transfer money or share a password, pin, or personal information?

Stop the conversation
Hang up a call or stop replying to the user. If you can’t verify the contact’s identity, do not share any personal or financial information.

Block and report
Block the user to stop them from contacting you, and report them to WhatsApp. Learn how to block and report

Update your privacy and security settings
Adjust your privacy settings to control who can see your personal information and contact you. You can also enable two-step verification to better secure your account.

Always look closely at a link or file before opening it because it may appear to be legitimate, but could be malicious. Visit our Help Center to learn more about suspicious files.

As a best practice, if you aren’t sure whether something is true or don’t know who wrote the message you received, don’t forward it. Learn more about preventing the spread of misinformation in this article.
If you’re unsure of an unknown contact’s identity, ask them a personal question to confirm their identity and if they’re truly a known contact. You could also do a voice or video call with them to confirm their identity.

You can also report it, block the sender, and delete the message. Learn how to report and block contacts in this article.

As a reminder, WhatsApp is a free app and you don’t have to pay to use it.