Urgent - Scam re Whatsapp

Thanks tessagee. I have phoned my son whose wife uses WhatsApp

Thank you tessagee, I’ve let all my kids/ in laws know.

Thanks, I've warned my family.

Thank you for your information

Strongly suggest you Google "WhatsApp Martinelli snopes" before getting too excited. Snopes is a site that verifies ( or otherwise) these hoaxes. This martinelli seems to be a hoax.

Thank you for this. I had just been warned by a friend and have forwarded it to my WhatsApp friends.

Thanks for the warning. I use WhatsApp A LOT for family contact

Thank you for the information. x

This is a hoax, read for yourselves. Please do not fall for these hoaxes, we have enough to panic about without falling for these.
www.snopes.com/fact-check/whatsapp-martinelli-phone-virus-warning/

I know we want to warn folk but please don’t spread hoaxes there is enough scaremongering around at the moment. Check things before posting, Snopes is quite a good site

www.snopes.com/fact-check/whatsapp-martinelli-phone-virus-warning/

Martinelli is a hoax.
WhatsApp hold is a scam.
They have been doing the rounds for over 20 years.
Which explains this in detail just Google "WhatsApp and Martinelli Which report."
Don't pass the warning on.

Snopes also says the “Gold” thing is a hoax too, dating from 2016. You can only assume isolation is making work for idle hands!

That old chestnut has been around for years, there is no WhatsApp gold anyway, check hoaxslayer or Snopes before you spread this sort of nonsense not as if you got it from an it expert yourself just copied and pasted. Having said that we all fall for some of them

Surely if Martinelli is a hoax, there’s no harm done, but if it isn’t, then there could be. How do we know ‘ hoaxslayer’ ‘snopes’, are not scams? I think we’ve got enough to worry about, without trying to out think hoaxers!

endlessstrife, unfortunately there is harm done by passing on hoaxes, as they use and waste valuable bandwidth, which at this time of massively increased internet useage it becomes even more important not to waste it. Snopes and Hoaxslayer are definitely not Hoaxes themselves, they are extremely reputable websites which have been battling internet hoaxes since the days of the old Bulletin boards which preceeded all of the so called "Social Media" we have today. Snopes itself has been around since 1994 which even predates the search engines like Google.

Silverhippy: With you totally on this the "no harm done" doesn't wash. There is none that is so blind as those who will not see.

My DGS told me to always check things like this out on Snopes (first I knew of that site). However I’d rather know about something I can check than have the problems threatened in the scam.

I have a friend who blithely passes on ever single thing she receives. I am sick of telling her to check it out with Snopes. She also forwards all these silly ‘nobody loves me because.....please share’ messages, etc, even though they are, at best, money-makers for someone, and at worst putting viruses on your machine.
Basically, it is easier for her to press ‘share’ than to spend a few minutes checking it out. Of course, she could just ignore them all.

Thank you I'll inform all who I know who uses WhatsApp

HOAX

Gosh what a lovely way to respond to someone who was only trying to help, albeit somewhat naively. After all, that welcoming to lurkers last week (when there was a chance of winning a prize) people are now being quite rude to someone who says they are a lurker and seems to be well meaning.
The response on here to @tessagee are the very reason I don’t use grandsnet anymore, it is now every bit as bad as mumsnet.
If you can't be kind be quiet.

I stand corrected. When I said “ no harm done”, I meant if you assume it’s a hoax, which I do with most things, then you should be safe. It’s when you don’t see it may be a hoax, that harm could be done. Hope that is clearer. I also want to thank you tessagee, for trying. If it had wrecked everyone’s phones, then that would probably have had the same affect as wasting bandwidth!

I feel silly now.

Not everyone is IT savvy and this is ‘gransnet’ which implies some users could be silver surfers and not aware of websites such as snopes. tessagee was only trying to help others and doesn’t deserve some of your harsh comments. Yes we have a lot to worry about at the moment, but surely we have a lot to be grateful for as well and belittling this ‘poster‘ for what she believed to be a helpful post is shameful.
Be safe, but just as important, be nice!