WhatsApp, Facebook & Instagram Scams
Social apps are common delivery channels for fraud and impersonation. The legal analysis still maps to PECA offences such as electronic fraud, identity misuse, or spoofing — the platform name is not a separate crime.
Platform evidence tips
Export chats where the app allows it. Capture profile links, group invite links, and payment messages before accounts are banned. Note that informal “recovery agents” on the same apps are frequently secondary scams.
Applicable PECA provisions
Links open LawHub’s National corpus text for PECA 2016. Read the full section before relying on a short label.
Evidence checklist
- Chat exports and media files received
- Profile URLs / numbers
- Payment proofs tied to the chat
Practical next steps
- Report the account in-app.
- Preserve exports, then follow the online-fraud reporting guide.
Related cybercrime topics
Find a cyber crime lawyer
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Sources & provenance
- The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (Pakistan Code consolidation) — Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of Pakistan (Pakistan Code). National corpus consolidation_date 2025-02-07; source_id pakistancode-peca-2016.
- Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act, 2025 (Act No. II of 2025) — Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) / Senate Secretariat gazette publication. Presidential assent and Gazette Extra. publication 29 January 2025; [94(2025)/Ex. Gaz.].
- NCCIA online complaint portal — National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (complaint.nccia.gov.pk). Host complaint.nccia.gov.pk resolves on the public DNS (Cloudflare). Bot fetches may receive HTTP 403; users should open the official domain in a browser and follow current on-site instructions.
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