WhatsApp blackmail network is ruining people’s lives

Luxury watch sellers and jewellers who trade on WhatsApp are falling victim to scammers who threaten to ban them from the platform unless they pay thousands of pounds in ransom.

Small business owners told The Telegraph that their WhatsApp accounts had been blocked without explanation. They said that both before and after the blocks, anonymous users contacted them, demanding payment in cryptocurrency to leave the victims alone or restore access.

Thanks to its privacy and ease of use, Meta’s messaging app has been embraced by a slew of entrepreneurs who use it to market expensive watches, chains and other jewelry, connect with customers, conduct conversations and keep records.

Given that some watches are valued at tens of thousands of pounds, having your account blocked for several weeks could result in the loss of significant income.

Business representatives say Meta is doing little to help them, which is causing their businesses to grind to a halt while they suffer losses and fall behind their competitors.

The contact form for businesses on WhatsApp’s support page was also found to be broken, making it difficult for businesses to report issues.

When The Telegraph brought the issue to Meta’s attention, the company said it had reported the issue internally.

Tony Singh, owner of Asian Wealth Jewellers, a luxury watch and jewellery store operating in the UK and Canada, received messages from a scammer in early August threatening to block his WhatsApp account if he did not pay a “ransom”.

Mr Singh refused and woke up the next day to find his account was dead. He said: “I was in limbo. It really affected me personally, business-wise and financially.”

While he was banned, Mr Singh communicated with a number of social media accounts claiming he could have his account unblocked for a fee. Many of the accounts, seen by The Telegraph, appear to be from India.

He said: “There’s a huge network of people who use Meta for business purposes, whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, it’s used as part of our daily lives. When you take them away… what do you do?

“(If) you start over, you’ll lose everything you have.”

This comes after another luxury watch retailer, Tom Bolt, suffered a significant hit to its earnings in August when it was also inexplicably banned from WhatsApp.

He told The Telegraph earlier this month: “My loss of earnings has been significant. If they can just randomly cut people off then anyone who uses this service – and others like Facebook and Instagram – to try to make a living is at risk.

Mr Singh added: “It has made such an impression on me that people have stopped contacting me, offering me watches and jewellery because I am not available on WhatsApp.”

In both cases, their accounts were reinstated this week after The Telegraph questioned Meta about the bans. However, in both cases, Meta declined to say why they were banned or why their appeals were unsuccessful.

Immediately after Mr Singh’s account was unblocked, a scammer posing as a “Met representative” he had been speaking to while he was blocked contacted him and took credit for unblocking it – and demanded payment.

“You have to pay $1.2k to unban and $2k to add a shield,” the person said.

Mr Singh said: “Now they say they want more money, they want to ‘protect’ my number, (so) this doesn’t happen again. What should I do now?”

The third watch seller was contacted via WhatsApp and asked to pay £1,500 or his account and Instagram profile would be blocked.

Both Mr. Singh and Mr. Bolt say they had trouble contacting Meta after they were banned. They still don’t know how or why their accounts were banned.

Mr Singh said he believes fraudsters are primarily targeting sellers of luxury goods because they rely on WhatsApp as a platform.

“The watch dealer business is basically about having group chats, communicating with each other, buying and selling for each other. It’s a very secret, trusted group.”

Scammers claim they can block, unblock, and “secure” WhatsApp and Instagram accounts, meaning they can never be blocked again. Meta said it’s not possible to protect the accounts.

Several accounts analyzed by The Telegraph advertise their services using the Telegram messenger.

One person who claimed to run a service for banning and unbanning users said that reporting accounts and suspending them was trivial. “They will check, but not very well,” the account claimed. “Instagram and its team are not doing a perfect job.”

The person claimed he could unblock accounts via people with access to parent company Meta’s systems. The Telegraph could not verify those claims.

In addition to the problems with scammers, there is growing frustration over the number of unexplained bans imposed by the social media giant even as it markets its WhatsApp business platform to entrepreneurs.

A WhatsApp spokesperson said: “We always try to stay one step ahead of privacy violators who try to abuse our services, and we work to block their accounts to keep people safe.

“Sometimes we make a mistake, so we’ll fix it as soon as possible so people can get back to chatting. We’ve seen rumors that somehow our staff is intentionally banning the wrong people, and that’s completely untrue.”

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