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A student has slammed sick WhatsApp hackers who got his account blocked…after changing his profile picture to a "fanny".
Mortified Oliver feels a fool for getting caught up in the hoax – which could have also led to at least seven of his friends being hacked too – so is urging people not to fall for it.
The 23-year-old fears what messages or images may have been sent by the hackers to his phone contacts thinking it was him. He's also had to apologise to relatives who saw the explicit photo.
Oliver, who is studying a degree in psychology, told Daily Star: "I have to laugh that there is someone out there who’s choosing to do this with their life – especially the utterly pointless decision to do that with my picture – but it is incredibly frustrating to be duped this way."
The hack started after Oliver, from Wiltshire, was sent a verification code via text message from WhatsApp.
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"I thought that was weird, probably a scam, but then I checked my WhatsApp messages and this girl I was in uni halls with had sent a message.
"She said there was a mistake and a verification code was sent to me by accident and could I send it to her."
Oliver admits he thought it was strange the girl had got in touch with him as not only had he not spoken to her in years, he couldn't understand how she had used his number by mistake.
"But being the whimsical obedient Brit I am I took a screenshot and sent it over and thought nothing of it, although I did think it was odd there was no follow up message from her," he said.
The next morning, however, he woke to see eight missed calls just before 5am, as well as a message from a friend on Facebook saying they had received a message from him on WhatsApp asking to send a code.
"To which I realise that’s the exact message I received and I can longer access WhatsApp," Oliver said.
A number of his friends also got the same WhatsApp message and shared their code with Oliver not knowing they were communicating with the hacker. Their accounts may now also have been hacked.
"A lot of them have fallen for it too," he said.
"I have received multiple messages asking if this was me. My account has been banned for what I can only assume was the photo of a fanny the hacker changed my picture to.
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"God knows what else they’ve done.
"I now have no access to my main form of communication which I use the majority of my time and had over 9,000 memes and funny pictures of friends that I will never get back."
He may never have access to his WhatsApp account again as his phone number has been banned from using the app.
He has uninstalled WhatsApp from his phone and contacted the support team for help, but is not having any luck in getting his account back.
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He added: "My thumb keeps going to click bottom right on the app, but alas there’s nothing there."
This hack, involving a person's unique six-digit WhatsApp code, has been going around for years.
The hacker uses an already hijacked account [in Oliver's case his friend's from university] to contact the victim’s friends.
It doesn't always have to be via WhatsApp, it can be Facebook too.
The hacker goes on to say they are having issues receiving a six-digit code, and so had it sent to their friend instead and if they can send it back to them.
In some cases, hackers go on to contact the victim's friends pretending to be them and say they are having an emergency and need money.
WhatsApp advises on its website : "You should never share your WhatsApp SMS verification code with others, not even friends or family.
"If you're tricked into sharing your code [you may] lose access to your WhatsApp account."
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