YPF warned of a dangerous campaign that uses its image for a virtual scam

The shock generated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine proved to be an opportunity for virtual scams, even in Argentina. Today, the Argentine oil company YPF came out to warn that even the image of the local company is being used by one of these fraudulent schemes.

“During the day a new fake fuel donation campaign has gone viral on the occasion of the war in Ukraine. People are invited to get 3 months of free naphtha in exchange for a series of data,” the YPF press office said in a statement and in social media posts.

“If it reaches you, don't give any data and report it,” asked the company and left a contact number so that users can alert about the distribution of the fraud attempt. The reporting number is 0800 1222 YPF (973).

“The contests we run from YPF are always published on official channels,” they added.

The scam, distributed through courier services, simulates that the company is looking for customer data to guarantee them 3 free months of naphtha given the problems that the war in Europe generated in the energy market.

“As a result of the rise in the value of a barrel of oil due to the war in Ukraine, our fuel storage tanks have reached their maximum capacity limits,” says the text hosted on the fake website.

The website can be easily recognized as fraudulent based on its URL, the address displayed by the browser, which instead of using the official YPF domain starts with “tinyurl”. YPF's real initiatives are hosted exclusively on its official websites and channels.

“In order to reduce losses in our production lines and at the same time help those in need, we offer 3 months of free bnafta to all those who use it for work or academic activities,” adds the scam attempt.

After asking for a series of data, the fraudulent system asks to share the campaign with Whatsapp contacts in such a way as to unlock a benefit of “four full gas tanks per month”.

From the oil company they came out to distance themselves from the fraudulent scheme that uses the image of the firm, since the delivery of data and cell numbers that the system harvests can serve creators to access accounts of all kinds, such as banks, digital wallets and other sensitive applications.

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