If contacts are popping up in your Whatsapp address book where they shouldn't be, take caution. It might be a glitch that surfaces when an acquaintance gives up a phone number that is then taken up by a third party. Given that more than 700 million smartphone users have jumped on the Whatsapp bandwagon, it's not surprising that the problem is surfacing, notes teltarif.de, a German telecommunications web portal.
Whatsapp identifies customers by their phone number. At the same time, when a person uses Whatsapp, the app bases its contact list on that phone on the numbers stored in the person's electronic address book. The problem occurs if an acquaintance stops using a given phone number and that phone number is then taken up by another person, most likely a stranger, who then registers with Whatsapp. The Whatsapp system on a phone will then see the stranger's name in its remote database and the number stored in the other user's mobile and make an erroneous connection. Thanks to the way Whatsapp synchronizes contact data, the stranger might then appear in a user's list of contacts, but under the name of the friend who used the number originally. It's only a short step then for people to start sending text messages to complete strangers. Since mobile providers will often recycle old phone numbers - reissuing them to new customers if an old client has given up the service and the number attached to it - the best option for Whatsapp users is to make sure Whatsapp has them registered under the right phone number. The little-known function is found under Settings/Account/Change Number. Whatsapp claims to reset all user accounts that are inactive for 45 days and then reactivated with a new telephone, but the facts do not bear that out. Note, there are ways to see if the name in your contact list is who you think it is. Check the profile picture, for example. Also, use caution if a person who has claimed they would never start using a smartphone suddenly pops up as a Whatsapp contact.