Gardaí issue warning over elaborate bank and 'hi mum' text messaging scams
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Gardaí are warning the public to be vigilant of two sophisticated text and Whatsapp message scams targetting victims in Cork.
They reported two instances in which people were scammed by such tactics.
In the first instance, an older woman in Macroom received a text message from her bank stating that there had been some suspicious activity on her account, and that she should click the hyperlink in the message to review her transactions.
The woman clicked the link, and then closed the page a few moments after.
That afternoon, the woman two calls from the stolen card section of her bank, one hour apart.
Though the number displayed on the woman's mobile appeared to be the real number for the stolen card section of her bank, the scammers had used a technique called "number spoofing" wherein scammers use a piece of technology that mimics legitimate numbers.
To the unwitting victim, the number appears to be completely authentic.
According to Sargent John Kelly of Fermoy Garda station, the person the woman spoke to, a man, had an Irish accent. This person told the victim that there were several devices logged into her bank account at that time and suggested that her account had been compromised.
"The caller asked if she had her cards on her," Sgt Kelly told Patricia Messenger on
"He informed her that they would need to examine her bank cards to see how they were skimmed."
The scammer then told the victim that he would arrange an appointment for her at her bank, and that he would be cancelling her cards and freezing her account to prevent any further transactions.
She was also told that her bank's "courier" would be in her locality in the afternoon to collect the cards.
Luckily, the woman's son overheard this portion of the conversation, realised it was a scam, and alerted the gardaí and the woman's bank.
The "courier" mentioned in the call was in fact an innocent taxi driver, who had received a fare to collect an envelope at the woman's address.
"The gardaí put an operation in place and accompanied the taxi driver to Midleton, and in Midleton the envelope was handed over to a person outside a bank," Sgt Kelly said.
"A person has been arrested and has been charged, and is presently before the courts. And inquiries are being carried out into other cards found on the person. This was quite an elaborate scam."
In the second smishing scam brought to gardaí's attention, a person received a message from a scammer pretending to be their son or daughter. In the message, the person claimed to need money urgently.
The victim in this case had a child living abroad, assumed the text was real, and transferred a couple thousand euro to the message-sender.
"They gave their account number, and there was a couple of grand paid over. And it's not the first time we've seen something like that," Sgt Kelly said.
He said the best way to combat the scams was to increase public awareness of them.
"The more people that we can give the information to, get them talking, and it will prevent a lot of it from happening."