Help Is it possible the whatsapp chat of previous owner appearing in a used phone?

[spman]

Hello,

A question on using whatsapp in a used phone. If John bought a used phone, before John got that phone, that previous owner using the phone was using sim card mobile number 67896789 has whatsapp installed and had chat history, after the previous owner sold the phone he bought a new phone and used the same number 67896789 on his new phone whatsapp and restored chat backup into his new phone.

The used phone was not formatted and whatsapp icon is seen in the phone, when John got the phone he inserted his sim card 23452345 and just pressed the whatsapp button (screenshot of screen that appeared after pressing whatsapp https://i.imgur.com/W36ATNa.png ) and followed the whatsapp screen steps to install. John did not restore any whatsapp chat during installation and it was his first time using whatsapp. After completing whatsapp installation steps is it possible that John will see the whatsapp chat of the previous owner 67896789 appearing in the chat history (if previous owner did not delete anything on the used phone)?

Thanks

(saw a similar case https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/brfzs0/i_just_got_a_new_phone_number_and_installed/ )

 

[Hadron]

Shouldn't be possible. WhatsApp uses the phone number to sign in, and different SIM = different phone number. Of course I've not tested directly whether they have done it right (e.g. borrowing someone else's SIM and then seeing whether I can find a way of accessing my chats or restoring one of the backups), but they shouldn't be able to.

Of course there will be other stuff on an unwiped phone that is less protected (including access to your Google account if you really didn't wipe it, assuming they can get into the phone at all).

 

[MoodyBlues]

Shouldn't be possible. WhatsApp uses the phone number to sign in, and different SIM = different phone number.

I'm just tossing this out there, even though there's a big, fundamental difference. But it may help someone figure something out.

When I activated my WhatsApp account, my oft-cursed lack of a signal in my house prevented me from receiving the activation code via text. But! I provided my landline number, the code was spoken to me via a voice call, I activated WA, and that was that.

Until I bought a new smartphone and tried setting up WA on it.

By then, I had long forgotten any of that. I knew WA was backing up every night--I could *see* its file online, for heaven's sake! The file's name--the part of the name I could see in portrait on my phone--certainly looked right. I tried all sorts of things, to no avail, as I tried to get WA working on my new phone.

Oh, did I mention that the new phone did get a signal in my house? Not much, but good enough to momentarily connect to activate the account. Which kept failing... I'd try restoring its backup, it would say it didn't exist, and I'd cuss out loud "what the *%@)&! do you mean it doesn't exist? I'm LOOKING RIGHT AT IT!"

Then I thought, hmmm...I wonder what that backup file's name looks like in its entirety... ...switched to landscape... OMFG! It's my landline's phone number! At first I was just baffled: why the hell did I use that?! Then it all came flooding back...

So the moral of the story is, well, I'm not really sure! But I do know that one WA account can have two phone numbers associated with it. And you can use a landline number to register.