Sainsbury Warns of Fake Gift Cards on WhatsApp

Sainsbury the supermarket chain cautions its buyers of one fresh scam involving gift cards which's presently getting executed through WhatsApp. Buyers are cautioned against filling a survey circulated through certain WhatsApp message getting distributed profusely to people's accounts. The message tells that buyers need to answer a survey following which they should dispatch the web-link onto 10 contacts for which they'll receive one gift voucher worth 250 pounds from Sainsbury.

But actually, no gift voucher exists while the message serves cyber-thugs in acquiring unwitting people's personal information. Moreover, the web-link inside the text takes users onto a fake Sainsbury site crafted for duping them into giving away their private data through WhatsApp. In particular, following the web-link results in browser extensions or cookies getting downloaded onto victims' smart-phones with which additional adverts are presented before them that would yield the cyber-crooks increased ad revenue. In 2015, one likewise scam struck buyers of Sainsbury wherein the gift voucher offer was worth 100 pounds.

People receiving the sinister message on their smart-phones are tweeting on twitter.com telling how frustrating the supermarket's survey is merely to know from Sainsbury that the messages weren't from the retail giant while were in great probability spam. Sadly, a few smart-phone owners availing the WhatsApp service have by now been victimized with the scam.

According to one spokesperson from Sainsbury, the shopping giant knows the problem so it's urging clients that they should erase the message. Further, as per a message that Sainsbury gave out via its authorized Twitter account, the survey message wasn't any formal communication from the supermarket chain and it must be overlooked or deleted devoid of answering. Express.co.uk posted this, January 17, 2017.

Mark James security expert from ESET comments that unfortunately people continue to get victimized with the above kind of scams wherein they're deceived and fooled into pursuing web-links that popular social media applications distribute devoid of really perceiving the dangers.

That's because following any web-link can pose danger to people through various methods where the site the web-link produces appears genuine while tells to provide information, most usually, passwords; however, really transmits them onto some hacker.

» SPAMfighter News - 1/20/2017