A WhatsApp message has been circulating in Spain for several days, asking people to vote for a girl named Eliska in a purported ballet contest with a free class as the prize. El Mundo reported it on Wednesday, 21 October 2026. The National Police and the Interior Ministry say not to click suspicious links and not to share personal data on unsafe channels. That is a fraud alert. It is not a tally of victims.

The text appears to come from a known contact. It asks a small favour and points to a page that presents itself as a vote. Names and prizes can vary: INCIBE has also had reports using other first names. The page asks for personal data. We are not publishing the address. We are not describing how an account is taken over.

El Mundo, citing Interior, writes that there are as yet no police figures on complaints or people affected by this campaign. With no figure, we do not invent one. RTVE had already flagged the message on Tuesday. EL PAÍS treats it as phishing, not as a real contest.

INCIBE published an advisory on the same 21 October: do not open the link, do not give a phone number, check the request by calling the person who appears to have written, and do not forward the message. No legitimate technical support, the institute says, will ask for a verification code. General advice, not an attack guide.

Police note that scammers do not only build fake sites: they can call or write on WhatsApp, posing as an institution or a trusted person. INCIBE offers the 017 helpline. Anyone who has suffered a loss is told to contact their bank on official channels and to go to the police. That is the warning. It is not the campaign's statistics.

The message is not a contest. It is a circulating campaign. With no complaint figures, it remains an alert, not a tally.

Image: Triplecana, Palacio de los Condes de Casa Valencia, Madrid, 17 May 2017, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; the building in 2017, not the Wednesday alert.

Sources consulted: Could you vote for Eliska: the new WhatsApp scam - El Mundo, 21 October 2026; A fake dance contest lets cybercriminals use your WhatsApp account - INCIBE, 21 October 2026.