Dubai: Just 530 new WhatsApp accounts are available for smartphones and soon all users will have to pay 37 cents for every message on the mobile-messaging application.
That’s the latest hoax doing the rounds for WhatsApp users in the region, purportedly sent by its director.
The hoax message went viral days after Facebook bought the five-year-old startup for $19 billion.
“Hello, I Am riya director of whatsApp, this message is to inform all of our users that we have only 530 accounts available for new phones… If you do not send this message to all your contacts to WhatsApp, then your account will remain inactive [sic],” reads the message. “Forward this message to more than 9 people in your contact list and you will be free lifetime,” it further says.
Pradeesh VS, General Manager at ESET Middle East, told Gulf News that the fake message seems to come from different users claiming to be top officials of WhatsApp. “The senders are just misusing. As of now it does not harm any user,” he said.
The hoax showed up a day after WhatsApp suffered a global outage, sparking frustration among users. “WhatsApp service has been restored. We are so sorry for the downtime...,” the company tweeted on Saturday at 22.48 GMT. The service was still down in many parts of the world, yesterday.
