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Fucking morons. I’ve been looking for a new apartment and messaging a ton of real estate agents lately, and WhatsApp just decided to block me for 'suspicious activity.' They already restricted my account a couple of days ago, and I almost missed an apartment viewing because of it. And I‘ve already done that for three moves before with zero issues. I live in a country where literally all communication with real estate agents happens on WhatsApp, so now I’ll have to go out tomorrow and get a whole new phone number if they don’t unblock me or Im gonna end up on the street. Fucking morons. Fuck you, Crapsapp, and your piece-of-shit messenger

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[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 149 points 3 days ago

Welp, here's the thing. Real estate agents typically like getting paid. So I figure if you tell them "Hey, I don't have whatsapp. Let's email or text instead.", they would do it, because a sale is a sale. They aren't agreeing to give anything up. And it's a very temporary situation from their perspective.

Also, I find it wild that meta (facebook), which owns whatsapp, controls the platform that an entire country relies on for any communication within an industry that dictates where you live. That is crazy. That feels like a lot of corruption must have had to happen for that to have happened.

[-] blitzen@lemmy.ca 113 points 3 days ago

WhatsApp has market share from the momentum gained in countries that didn’t have free/cheap SMS. I too find it wild that it’s the default in most of the world, and it’s super shady and super proprietary. The messaging that we have in the US is far far far from perfect, but at least it’s not Facebook Chat.

[-] Mannimarco@lemmy.dbzer0.com 71 points 3 days ago

Also, that momentum was gained before whatsapp was bought by Facebook

Dumbfucks. Corporations will always be bought by worse corporations, and if you don't understand that, you deserve to suffer.

[-] BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world 34 points 3 days ago

Plus in markets like Brazil, having unlimited use of WhatsApp services, including video calls, is a selling point for most cellular providers. You will have a data cap but could still video call your grandma on WhatsApp when you're out of data. Every business has their WhatsApp number posted out front and on their websites/social media.

For example, here is Claro, a large Brazilian phone company's cheapest current plan, 36GB of data but unlimited WhatsApp usage and 5GB for social media.

(Translated from Firefox)

[-] matlag@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Yep! That's why net neutrality is so important.

[-] Alfredolin@sopuli.xyz 7 points 3 days ago

What the FUCK? Why would the providers do that?

[-] dsilverz@catodon.rocks 11 points 3 days ago

If you check who's the topmost billionaire with a Brazilian nationality, you'll likely find out part of why. Hint: he is portrayed in "The social network" film.

!mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world

[-] Vittelius@feddit.org 6 points 2 days ago

It (potentially) allows them to charge at both ends. I don't know if that's what happens in Brasil specifically but it happens in a couple of countries.

The providers charge the users for the data use and the services for being exempt from the data caps.

[-] BigDaddySlim@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I betcha this is the answer, they're probably doing that as a deal with the telecom companies because WhatsApp what's the market share and control, so that's why they agree to it.

[-] Amdouni@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 days ago

Crazy, in my county it's almost the same but Tik Tok instead of WhatsApp

[-] oats@piefed.zip 5 points 3 days ago

We have one (I think) provider who does free WhatsApp traffic in Germany, but it never took of. WhatsApp itself is used a lot though.

Persobally I have 20 or 30 GB of data, not sure. I use like 3 to 4 each month.

[-] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 days ago

For text communication surely it uses almost no data

[-] daggermoon@piefed.world 36 points 3 days ago

If we could just get people to use Signal.

[-] zergtoshi@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago

I've never used Whatsapp and never will do.
Team Signal since the time it was called Textsecure 🫡
Then again I don't rely on Whatsapp to stay housed 😐

[-] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 3 days ago

isnt wechat popular in asia.

[-] zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 35 points 3 days ago

If you have 100 applications per apartment and only one wants to do it via e-mail, then we both know what’s going to happen.

[-] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 days ago

I am so glad when I was looking for a house they were desperate to find buyers. I should have made them jump through hoops just to agree to look at a house.

[-] gzgz@lemmy.zip 36 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

In the country I live you can‘t pay to real estate agents (it‘s prohibited). They are getting paid by the landlords, plus the rental market is pretty scarce so usually they don‘t give a fuck about you as they have a ton of inquiries from other potential renters

[-] observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 days ago

Effectively, they are getting paid by you, landlords factors that fee into the rent. But I get the point that the market favours landlords where you live and you might not have the privilege to ask for accommodations like communicating over SMS. This WhatsApp situation is fucked up, that your basic life functionality depends on a single unaccountable commercial entity.

My practical advice would be to buy an eSIM with a new number, there are very cheap options (like one used for travel) and you would practically need it just one time to get a verification code.

[-] dsilverz@catodon.rocks 7 points 3 days ago

My practical advice would be to buy an eSIM with a new number, there are very cheap options (like one used for travel)

OP would also have to buy a new smartphone and activate it in a cafe or anywhere not their current location (due to both the GPS/AGPS and wi-fi hotspot MAC address), otherwise whatsapp would straight up lock the new account, too, given how these PII (geolocation, wi-fi hotspot and, especially, the device) are tied to an account that got suspended earlier (and this goes against most of plafforms' terms regarding "ban evasion"). Hard resetting the smartphone doesn't work, as smartphones have unique identifiers (such as the phone's wi-fi adapter MAC), and using the same wi-fi may add to the factors leading to automatic locking of the account.

!mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world

[-] observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

They might be trying to detect ban evasion in various ways, but at least since Android 10 (released 2019), the OS restricts app access to non-resettable identifiers. That being said, Meta is known for dirty tricks, so simply using another phone number may indeed not be enough.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 12 points 3 days ago

They're also typically the laziest people in the world. The hate to expend any amount of effort and they don't get much from commissions if it's a rental.

When I was buying my house it took the sellers 5 months to sort out the paperwork. It took them any half a year to process the purchase of a single house.

this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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