Back in 2016, a scam message going by the name WhatsApp Gold made rounds on the messaging app. Coming to 2019, WhatsApp Gold has returned. Well, it’s fake after all.
The new WhatsApp Gold message suggests that a new video, called Martinelli, is soon to release. It’s rumored that opening the video will lead to malware hitting the smartphones. Therefore, the users must not open the ink.
While the viral message has created tension among users, it eventually turned out that the circulated message is a hoax, and is being spread just to invoke fear and panic among the users.
“Today the radio was talking about WhatsApp Gold and it is true. There is a video that will be released tomorrow on WhatsApp and is called Martinelli. Do not open it. Enter your phone and nothing you do will fix it,” the fake message read.
To make the people aware, various users took Twitter’s help and tweeted about the fake message.
This is doing the rounds again. Apparently tomorrow Whats App Gold will be a thing and screw your phone up. #WhatsAppGold #Martinelli #WhatsApp pic.twitter.com/4nHA4N07Xi
— TechBuzz Ireland ?? (@techbuzzinfo) January 2, 2019
The hoax that went viral in 2016 suggested that users would get various new WhatsApp features upon downloading the link in the message. However, it led to the entry of malware in the users’ devices who downloaded the link.
With WhatsApp being prone to a lot of such scams and the newly-introduced Forwarded feature not helping much, it’s high time we get some concrete and useful measures in place to get rid of scams.
