WhatsApp on Tuesday announced a set of safety features designed to help users spot and avoid scams across both group and individual chats, saying it has banned more than 6.8 million accounts tied to criminal scam centres that target people worldwide.
The Meta-owned messaging service said the new features are intended to give users more context before they engage, particularly when they are added to groups or begin conversations with people who are not in their contacts.
The company also described a coordinated enforcement action, undertaken with OpenAI, that disrupted scam activity traced to a fraud operation in Cambodia.
“In the first six months of this year, as part of our ongoing proactive work to protect people from scams, WhatsApp detected and banned over 6.8 million accounts linked to scam centers,” the company stated.
For group chats, WhatsApp is introducing a safety overview that appears when someone outside your contacts adds you to a group you don’t recognise.
The overview provides key information about the group, for example, whether the person who added you is in your contact list and whether any other group members are your contacts, plus tips to stay safe.
Users who want more context can view the chat; otherwise, notifications from the group will remain muted until they explicitly opt to stay.
The measure is designed to reduce surprise additions to large or malicious groups and to limit the spread of fraudulent links or social engineering attempts through mass invites.
WhatsApp also shared details of an enforcement effort that involved collaboration with OpenAI. The company said scammers used ChatGPT to generate initial outreach messages linking victims to WhatsApp chats, then redirected them to other platforms such as Telegram to complete the scam.
Reported schemes ranged from fake “earnings” tasks and pyramid-style rent-a-scooter operations to cryptocurrency investment ruses that lured victims into depositing funds.
WhatsApp said the safety tools are being rolled out gradually as tests continue, and the company will likely refine the features based on user feedback and evolving fraud patterns.