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Original poster

WhatsApp weirdness

26 replies

Gingerbreadless · 14/06/2023 17:08

My WhatsApp has done something funny, and I wondered if any clever people can explain how!

Yesterday a random person appeared in an old chat from 2021. I did not invite him (I'm the chat admin) and neither did the other chat participants. Nobody knows who he is, he's just a random. To be clear, this was an existing chat, ie it's not that he just messaged me randomly. He actually jumped in to our old chat.

I have not been hacked or anything, and my phone is the only linked device. I've received no notifications of login attempts from other devices.

So how can a random person just invite himself into our chat? Or maybe he is innocent and WhatsApp just added him without his consent!

I've contacted WhatsApp obviously but I don't think it's an actual person I'm talking to, and the bot doesn't believe me that this can happen. But it has!

OP posts:

bobuka · 14/06/2023 18:54

No idea sorry that is so strange ! I would've thought it's some king of hack aswell...
Hopefully others can help you.
Had he said anything in the group??

llareggub · 14/06/2023 19:00

Someone in the group changed their number and their original number now longs to the random.

Original poster

Gingerbreadless · 14/06/2023 20:11

@llareggub definitely not that. A really small group, and everyone is still in it.

He just said "who's this?"

I really don't think I've been hacked. I don't know how you actually would hack WhatsApp without the account owner giving away verification or QR codes etc. And I don't think a hacker would just write "who's this" in one chat!

OP posts:

greyhairnomore · 14/06/2023 21:03

Have you asked them ?

Original poster

Gingerbreadless · 14/06/2023 21:12

Yep, as I said in my OP, I've been emailing them about it. They reply every time, but don't actually answer the question, and the responses are just cut and paste so I think it's a bot. Their last message just shut me down, saying that my account is active and everything is fine.
Basically, they don't believe me. I did send a screenshot which evidenced what had happened but they ignored it.

OP posts:

determinedtomakethiswork · 14/06/2023 21:13

Would it matter if you started a new group inviting everyone except him? Would anything vital be lost?

determinedtomakethiswork · 14/06/2023 21:14

He can be removed from the group by the administrator.

Original poster

Gingerbreadless · 14/06/2023 21:32

Yes, I can remove him I'm sure. That's not really the point though is it?
Government ministers use WhatsApp to discuss state business. What if this happened to one of their chats? It would be easy not to notice a new person (there was no grey box saying "X has been added" like you normally get when a new member is invited to a group) and the ministers could go on chatting without realising Steve from Dundee is reading their confidential messages.
Do healthcare professionals ever discuss patients over WhatsApp? Social workers? Teachers?
You see my concern. If this can happen to my boring chat with friends, this can happen to any WhatsApp user.

OP posts:

Original poster

Gingerbreadless · 14/06/2023 22:00

Did a bit of googling... turns out something similar has happened before. In 2020 WhatsApp accidentally generated invite links to users' existing chats and posted them online! So anyone could join! Maybe something similar has happened again? A bit worse this time though, as the grey box warning you that someone new has joined did not appear.
Eeeek

OP posts:

NorthWestThree · 14/06/2023 22:02

If teachers are discussing pupils over WhatsApp then it's wildly unprofessional!

SmartHome · 15/06/2023 09:15

has one of the existing members chnaged their phone number, immediately updated their new number in the WhatsApp contact so they still appear as a member in the group and this is the person that now has the old number?

My oldest son had a SIM with a number attached to it associated with a certain amount of data. When his younger brother started secondary school a couple of years ago I gave it to him and bought the oldest one a new SIM with a new number and more data. So DS3 now has DS1 old number. Despite changing a) the number associated to DS1 and b) the name associated to DS3s SIM literally everywhere I could think of, DS3 still sometimes gets random text or snaps from DS1s friends on his phone. Could it be something like that? DS1 remained in all family WhatsApp chats throughout with same profile pic etc even though his underlying number changed.

Something weird has happened to WhatsApp recently though as both DPs and DS1s profile pics have disappeared and are now blank and they both swear they didn't delete them.

Original poster

Gingerbreadless · 15/06/2023 12:59

@SmartHome thanks for the suggestion, but there's only two other people in the group and we've all had the same numbers for years and years. It's definitely not that.
Just a random extra person that WhatsApp decided to add to our conversation!! 🤷

OP posts:

SmartHome · 15/06/2023 13:59

That is very weird then and does indeed sound like a whatsapp configuration issue. Have you tried putting it on twitter?

PossiblyNotOne · 15/06/2023 18:15

Do healthcare professionals ever discuss patients over WhatsApp?

Yes, all the time. It’s how we handover and communicate and refer patients to each other, professionally, at work. It’s how we communicate amongst teams.

Original poster

Gingerbreadless · 15/06/2023 19:39

Yeah, I thought it was likely lots of professionals use it for moderately confidential stuff. It is supposed to be totally secure after all!

@SmartHome I'm not on Twitter, and don't think I can be arsed joining for this 🤣 I don't think it's likely I'm the only one it's happened to though, so am sure WhatsApp are busily working on covering it up already!

OP posts:

Valour · 15/06/2023 19:42

Is the random person able to read the past messages on that group? 😳

Original poster

Gingerbreadless · 15/06/2023 21:02

@Valour I hope not! Normally with WhatsApp you can't.
But normally there is a grey box saying "Steve has been added" so you would know that a random person had appeared. But this didn't happen in this case - no grey box. So if it had been a current chat we might have carried on chatting with no idea someone else was now seeing everything 😳

OP posts:

GreenIsTheMagicColour · 16/06/2023 10:32

I've been thinking a lot about your situation! Logic tells me that this may not be just a random person. Of all the billions of WhatsApp users around the world that could have been added, it sounds like they are British, so potentially someone that one of you has had dealings with, even if it was just a builder someone phoned once for a quote.

Could you go into the group info and click on Group Settings? Is this option checked? That would allow others to add people to the group.

Also, I'm wondering if this person could have been accidentally added a long time ago, hence you not seeing the grey box, but you only noticed now that they asked who you are.

mindutopia · 16/06/2023 11:56

Do any of the other people know Steve? I have fallen asleep on my phone and nearly sent very odd things to random tradespeople I have saved in my phone. If Steve came and gave a quote for window cleaning to someone else in the chat a number of years ago and they had his number in their phone, it wouldn't be hard to add him to the chat by accident unless your settings are locked down.

To answer your question, yes, health care professionals do use WhatsApp. Actually, I am required to in some cases for data protection reasons, because it's the only end-to-end encrypted messaging service we have access to. NHS email is not encrypted if you are sending an email outside of the NHS (for example, to a patient). Though the vast majority of patient information is still shared by post and fax (if you'd believe it!), so you can see why WhatsApp is increasingly encouraged.

greenacrylicpaint · 16/06/2023 12:11

what's up changed something a couple of weeks ago that changed privacy settings without warning.

This means that all groups you are in are now accessible to everyone.
These group settings include "everyone" by default, so people you don't know can add you to a group without you ever knowing. These can be scammers, loan sharks, etc....
You can change the default settings as follows:

Go to WhatsApp:
Go to Settings
Go to Privacy
Go to Groups
Switch from (Everyone) to (My Contacts)

greenacrylicpaint · 16/06/2023 12:17

check privacy setting of your messenger apps regularly - they bastards sometimes change things without you noticing.

we are not allowed to use messenger apps for confidential work stuff.

Maddy70 · 16/06/2023 12:31

Just block him

Original poster

Gingerbreadless · 16/06/2023 14:33

@GreenIsTheMagicColour thank you! The add other participants option is turned off. There are less than ten messages in the chat, so it would be obvious if there was a grey 'added to chat' box anywhere. There isn't, so the only possibilities are that either I added him when originally creating the chat (I don't know him and my phone doesn't recognise his number either so I would have had to completely invent his number) or that WhatsApp has somehow added him.

@mindutopia nobody knows Steve. If anyone had added him, the grey box 'X added Steve' should have appeared too.

@greenacrylicpaint that's interesting! But surely either me or someone else already in the group would have had to add him though? As we didn't, how would he add himself to a group he didn't know existed belonging to people he doesn't know?

OP posts:

Maddy70 · 16/06/2023 14:45

Has someone sent a join code to this random person in error. Just block. Job done

NerrSnerr · 16/06/2023 14:45

Gingerbreadless · 14/06/2023 21:32

I'm a nurse who works remotely so needs to have discussions about patients with colleagues. We would never use WhatsApp. It's certainly not allowed.

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