WhatsApp robo-calls surge as scam pushes fake job offers

A robo call rings from a UK mobile number. A recorded voice asks the person who picks up to add them on WhatsApp. According to Independent Digital News and Media, the Information Commissioner's Office is investigating a sharp rise in complaints about exactly this call.

The numbers moved fast. Complaints rose from 1,374 in July to 2,178 in August, a 58 per cent increase, then climbed a further 69 per cent to 3,684 in September. That is the highest level of complaints about automated nuisance calls since 2021.

What the call is actually doing

The call itself gives away nothing. It is a recorded voice, not a person, and it asks for a small, low-stakes action: add this contact on WhatsApp. Nobody hands over a password or a card number on the phone. The scam depends entirely on what happens after someone adds the number.

Simon Fell, from the Communications Crime Strategy Group, told BBC Radio 4's You and Yours that once someone is through to WhatsApp, they are typically routed to a fake job listing. Some of these offer part-time work. Others draw people into WhatsApp groups. From there the real damage can start: money muling, where criminal funds are passed through a recruit's own bank account, dressed up as part of the job.

Fell also described a second possible use for the same call. It can simply be a filtering exercise. The recording goes out to a large list of numbers, and the only thing the caller wants to learn is who answers and who is active enough to add a WhatsApp contact. That information, he said, can be resold on the dark web.

Where the risk sits

This is why the call is built the way it is. It asks for an action that feels harmless, adding a contact, rather than information that feels sensitive. Anyone who adds the number has already confirmed they are a live, responsive target, before a single detail has been typed in. The job offer or the group invitation only comes afterwards, once that confirmation is in hand.

Andy Curry, the ICO's head of criminal investigations, said the reported numbers are likely only part of the real picture, because many people who get these calls simply hang up without reporting them. The ICO is asking anyone who receives a suspicious automated call to report it through its online form, since each report helps the regulator spot patterns and take enforcement action against whoever is behind them.

The tell is the sequence itself. A recorded voice asking to be added on WhatsApp is not a courier, a bank or an employer getting in touch. It is a filter, deciding who gets the next call.