Scammers are still rampant on the famous carpooling service, encouraging their victims to chat by messaging to direct them to a fake payment page and loot their bank account.

Scammers are still rampant on the famous carpooling service, encouraging their victims to chat by messaging to direct them to a fake payment page and loot their bank account.

BlaBlaCar is once again serving as a hunting ground for unscrupulous crooks. As reported The Parisien and Capital, several users of the famous carpooling service have thus been victims in recent weeks of a rather sophisticated scam which has sometimes resulted in a loss amounting to hundreds of euros. Although it has been used and spotted for months, the trap is formidable. A scammer creates a new profile – usually a woman, to inspire confidence – on BlaBlaCar and offers a ride at an attractive, below-average price. An interested passenger reserves their place by paying for it normally on the site or via the application. Before the announced departure, and often at the last moment, the scammer cancels the trip. The passenger is then automatically reimbursed by BlaBlaCar, as is always the case for a cancellation. So far, nothing unusual.

Except that, in the meantime, the scammer has recovered the contact details – more precisely, the mobile phone number – of his victim: a normal procedure which allows the driver to communicate with his passengers to organize themselves. He then contacts the carpooler via WhatsApp, offering him his trip again and claiming that the trip has been canceled due to a technical problem. He then provides him with a link allowing him to pay for the trip again, supposedly provided by the BlaBlaCar assistance service. In reality, it is a booby-trapped link that sends to a page that looks like a twin to BlaBlaCar’s official payment page. Even the padlock which guarantees the security of the transaction is present!

Of course, this is a fake page, but it demands real payment. Unsuspecting, the victim provides his bank details and validates the payment which goes directly to the scammer’s account, often located abroad. Worse, in some cases, the operation seems to fail, due to an alleged technical error. And the scammer, without any scruple, then asks his prey directly to start over several times, to puncture it to the last drop! Some more suspicious users were able to avoid the trap: this is the case of Valentin Hamon-Beugin, journalist at L’Usine nouvelle, who recounted his misadventure on Twitter. But others, pressed for time and the situation, did not have this flair and were robbed of several hundred euros in a few minutes. All for a trip that obviously never happened…

BlaBlaCar, which of course was made aware of these scams, reacted quickly. The platform noticed that the scam was linked to recent accounts, without travel history or comments, often under women’s names, some even offering different routes at very close times, impossible to keep, to cast a wide net in one go. minimum time. The service has set up an algorithm and a special team to eradicate them as quickly as possible.

This is not the first time that the carpooling platform has served as a hunting ground. Last October, several users who had been cheated in this way had already come forward on Twitter, recounting their misadventure, which had taken place under similar conditions and with similar techniques. Well aware of the problem, BlaBlaCar officials then specified that the cases remained rare, that the situation was under surveillance as soon as a report was made and that the profiles concerned were immediately blocked. .

BlaBlaCar takes this opportunity to remind you of a few basic rules to avoid falling into these traps. First, never pay anything outside the platform: everything must be done on the site Official BlaBlaCar or with the BlaBlaCar application, which are completely secure. Then, it is essential, before any reservation, to examine the profile of the driver who proposes a trip, to check his seniority and the opinions left by passengers. It is safer to choose a confirmed member. And you have to be wary of journeys displayed at abnormally low prices. Finally, in the event of a proven scam – if you are a victim, in particular… –, you should immediately report the scammer to BlaBlaCar by going to the scammer’s profile and selecting Report this member so that it is removed and that the associated information is reviewed to avoid re-registration.