Beware! Fake Valentine’s Day Gift Card on WhatsApp Promises Free 7-Day Stay at Taj Hotel

Valentine's Day is around the corner and people tend to send messages to their cared ones on WhatsApp and several other social media platforms. A new fake message has been circulating on WhatsApp that dupe users to click on a link. This fake scam message claim to offer free stay packages at the Taj Hotel for 7 days. Several people received the fraud message on their WhatsApp that claimed the free Valentine's Day gift vouchers in the name of the famous company Tata. WhatsApp New Privacy Policy: Plea Filed in Supreme Court Seeking Stay on Privacy Policy of the Facebook-Owned Messaging App That Affects 400 Million Indians.

Taj Hotels made an announcement on its official Twitter handle which reads, "It has come to our notice that a website has been promoting a Valentine’s Day initiative, offering a Taj Experiences Gift Card via WhatsApp. We would like to inform you that Taj Hotels/IHCL has not offered any such promotion. We request to take note of this and exercise due to caution."

According to a report, a WhatsApp forward message with the text 'I received a gift card from Taj Hotel and finally got the chance to stay in the hotel for 7 days for free' appears with a link. When you click on the link, a message pops up stating 'Taj Experiences Gift Card Taj Hotel sent out 200 gift cards to celebrate Valentine's Day. You can use this card to stay for 7 days at any hotel in Taj. All you have to do is open the correct gift box. You have 3 tries, good luck!'

When you click on 'OK', the page redirects to a short questionnaire that asks for you gender and how would you rate the hotel. After you have answered all the questions, you will further come across a page that shows 12 red boxes with the Tata Motors symbol and you must click on a random box to see if you have won the gift card or not. If you win a gift card, you will be further asked to go to the next page to claim the prize and there you will be asked to forward this message to either five groups of 20 individual accounts on WhatsApp. This is how fraudsters dupe WhatsApp users to click on the links that could contain malware.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 03, 2021 04:43 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).