Bus Éireann moves to shut down bizarre scam featuring Cork actor Cillian Murphy
The Oscar Cillian Scam Ad Murphy Featuring Winner
Bus Éireann has moved to shut down a bizarre scam offering cheap bus fares which used images of Oscar winner Cillian Murphy and a former lord mayor of Cork.
Images of the star and Independent councillor Kieran McCarthy holding Leap cards alongside images of Bus Éireann buses have appeared on a Facebook page in recent days encouraging people to sign up for the "too-good-to-be-true" public transports fares.
But Mr McCarthy, who served as the city’s lord mayor last year, stressed it was a complete scam and he urged people to report it.
“I have reported it, but if anyone sees it, please report it as a scam too to Facebook,” he said.
Both posts appeared on a Facebook page called the ‘Cork public transport card’ page, which features the Bus Éireann company branding and logo.
In Mr McCarthy’s case, the post appears to suggest he endorses a Cork public transport card in an ad which invites people to click on a weblink to avail of a six-month travel deal “to celebrate Bus Éireann’s 38th anniversary”.
It says if people buy a new Leap card, they will enjoy unlimited journeys on all modes of transport for six months for only €2.35.
And it puts pressure on people by saying the offer is valid only for the first 500 customers and is valid for seven days only.
In Mr Murphy’s case, the ad shows an apparently photoshopped AI-generated image of the Cork-born actor holding a Leap card in a post which offers free travel for six months with a Leap card.
The ad goes on to falsely state: “Bus Éireann invites you to join an initiative to improve the city's mobility and promote public transport. Get your hands on one of 500 cards offering six months of unlimited travel on [sic] Cork for just 2.35 EUR!
“Hurry, the offer is valid until the end of the month.”
Both websites include web links for anyone interested in more information. A number of people say they have been caught by the scam.
Bus Éireann said it was first made aware of this fraudulent Facebook page impersonating its services on Monday, by members of its social media monitoring team.
“Our IT department acted very quickly and reported the page to Meta, and it was removed within 24 hours,” a spokesperson said.
“On Thursday morning, we have been made aware of a second fraudulent page, which has also been reported by our IT department to Meta.
“We have requested that this fraudulent Facebook page impersonating our services is removed and this has now been completed by Meta.
“We would advise all customers using the internet for our services to be safe online and to source Government services and safety information from Be Safe Online (gov.ie).
“Customers should only use official transport sites, such as buseireann.ie for our services and leapcard.ie to purchase a Leap card or gain trustworthy information about the service.”
Last year, Tánaiste and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin had to take legal action over scam cryptocurrency ads featuring his image which appeared on Google.
The ads, which linked to a fake news article, claimed he had made a “fortune” by investing in cryptocurrency. The ads had almost four million impressions on Google, and were clicked on by nearly 15,000 Irish people.
It was established the fake advertising was bought from people with Google accounts based in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Germany and the US, but it was impossible to be definitive on the location where the adverts were bought because those involved could be using technology to hide their digital footprint.
A review of Google data showed the preferred language selected by those paying for the adverts was listed as “RUS”, believed to stand for Russian.