The year 2009 was running and Jacques Séguéla came out with an awkward sentence that made history: “ if at 50 you don’t have a Rolex, it’s because you’ve missed your life “. Is this where this new scam, 12 years later, originates? Hard to say. But on WhatsApp, the scam has spread rapidly since the beginning of May 2021 … initially in English, the message would now be in French.
A free Rolex for the 100 years of the watchmaker?
The scam is not very original in its concept: via WhatsApp, a message shared by contacts offers to participate in a kind of raffle to win free Rolex watches. As a reminder, Rolex luxury watches have a call price of over 4,500 euros (4.900 euros for the 2020 catalog with the Oyster Perpetual 31 Oyster model, 31 mm, Oystersteel steel).
A free luxury product, obviously, that has something to interest a maximum of people… but it will not happen tomorrow, at least at Rolex. The police of the canton of Vaud, in Switzerland, nevertheless warns that this message spreads quickly on WhatsApp networks in French, probably after being translated from English.
A phishing attack to steal bank details
The link of the message specifies that to win this contest you have to share the message at least 20 times to contacts, which exponentially accelerates its propagation. Then, unsurprisingly, you have to enter your bank details and personal data. This is where the trap closes: hackers, with this data in hand, can steal money from you, make purchases on your behalf … In short: they are a scam to steal the most data. classic.
However, there is an easy way to see that this is indeed a scam and not a real contest: the free Rolex would be offered for the 100 years of the Rolex brand… which was founded in 1905 and is therefore 116 years old in 2021.
However, for a watchmaker, who is moreover an official timekeeper for Formula 1, to miss his birthday by 16 years would be a bit of a shame.
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