Fivefold increase in call, text and email scams reported to Gardaí this month
22 Galway File Louth Scam Alone, Was Thursday, Wicklow, In April Unsuspecting Last Dublin, Limerick, Incidents Taken Of And Eight From Donegal, Cork, Victims €20,000 The Picture
A Cork person was scammed out of €9,000 after being informed their DNA had been found at a crime scene by someone posing as a garda.
That is just one of the high-profile scams identified by gardaí in recent weeks. They have warned the public to be wary of a major increase in the number of fraud and scam incidents reported to gardaí this month.
Provisional data from the Garda Pulse system indicates that there were 163 such incidents reported from April 1 to April 20 of this year - a fivefold increase on the amount reported during the same period last year.
Such is the prevalence of scams that last Thursday, April 22, some €20,000 was taken from the unsuspecting victims of eight scams in Dublin, Cork, Donegal, Limerick, Wicklow, Galway and Louth.
Gardaí are now urging the public to be alert to these scams and said there are some common factors in many of these incidents.
Fraudsters pretend to be from An Garda Síochána, the Department of Social Welfare, the Attorney General’s Office, a bank, a delivery company or some other businesses, in a bid to obtain sensitive personal information from their target - bank details, PPS number, home address details, passwords, pin codes, etc.
Gardaí say the scams are now so pervasive that people are now falling prey to them "on a daily basis."
In a bid to spread awareness of these scams, gardaí have provided details of some of the incidents reported to them in recent weeks.
These include calls from numbers purporting to be the Garda Confidential Line number. The actual number is 1800-666-111 and it does not make outgoing calls, while the scam comes from 0-1800-666-111.
Other common scams include texts claiming to be from the Department of Social Protection or banks, neither of which will ever send texts looking for personal information, or emails claiming to be from community or sports clubs, which seek bank or card details for a supposed change of payment.
Gardaí have stressed that any links contained in any suspicious emails or texts should not be clicked, and any calls from a suspicious number should not be returned.
- Dublin – Injured party lost over €20,000 after being told they were being investigated for money laundering and was required to lodge money into an account.
- Galway - Injured party lost over €20,000 after being told their PPS number was found following a raid at a house.
- Cork – Injured party at a loss of near €9,000 after being informed their DNA was found at a crime scene. They were required to send their details on the assist the investigation
- Waterford –Injured party lost near €5,000 after being told their PPS number had been tracked back to them and was linked to drugs and money laundering. They were asked to download an app resulting in the loss.
- Donegal – Injured party lost €750 after being contacted via social media by an unknown person informing them they have won a prize of €15,000 but to claim the prize they needed to use an amazon card.
"The golden rule is do not engage with people who contact you out of the blue looking for your personal information - plain and simple," said Detective Superintendent Michael Cryan of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau.
Anyone with concerns about any particular incident should call their local Garda station to report any attempted fraud.