Pricewatch

Eight scams Irish consumers should be wary of

Pricewatch: criminals have become much more adept at conning people out of their cash using a variety of scams

Some scammers are targeting people by pretending to fall in love with them in so-called 'romance scams', which quickly turns to asking for money. Photograph: iStock

Conor Pope's face
Conor Pope
Mon Feb 20 2023 - 08:28

Remember the good old days when scam artists were stupid? The only contact we had with the clowns were the illiterate emails claiming to be from the children of despots or dead bankers offering wild sums of money in exchange for our bank details.

Over the last decade or so, however, the criminals have got much more adept at conning people out of their cash while the tools of their despicable trade are now more easily found on the internet and bought for buttons than they ever were.

That is why many thousands of people fell victim to scams last year, with hundreds of people – including our reader – likely to have lost money already this year.

Things are getting worse and more people will lose money today, tomorrow and every day this year. We are not talking loose change, either.

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According to the annual report from FraudSMART, the fraud awareness initiative led by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI), published late last year, fraudsters stole nearly €45million in scams in the second half of 2021, a jump of 37 per cent on the same period in 2020.

The report detailed how debit and credit card fraud hit €14.5 million in 2022 up 18.5 per cent on the same period 12 months earlier. Most of the increase was driven by online card fraud or “card not present” where a fraudster uses the victim’s compromised card information to make an online purchase.

It highlighted the soaring value of unauthorised electronic payment (credit transfer and direct debit) fraud which, at €21.5 million, reflected a sharp increase in online and mobile banking fraud – a method that sees a payment made by another person without the account holder’s authorisation or permission and usually results from the loss, theft or misappropriation of sensitive payment data.

[ Young woman’s bank account emptied because of an unfortunate coincidence ]

The report also showed how consumers were scammed out of €7.6 million through authorised push payments, which take place when a victim is duped into transferring money from their account to a fraudster’s account, such as through romance or investment scams.

It is not the only piece of recent research which that points to the damage scams are doing and who are the most vulnerable. According to Permanent TSB, those under 45 are more likely to fall victim to financial fraud than older people.

In pre-Christmas research, it found that a massive three-quarters of consumers had experienced an attempted financial fraud and more than a quarter (27 per cent) had been victims.

The over-45 age group makes up 52 per cent of the adult population and accounts for 37 per cent of victims, while the over-65 age group makes up 18 per cent of the population and 11 per cent of victims.

The most common types of financial fraud are “vishing”, which involves phone calls and voice messages, “smishing”, which involves text messages, and “phishing”, which involves emails.

And the scams continue to evolve.

Last week, for instance, we received mails from two different people who had forwarded correspondence from a company claiming to offer trade mark registration and protection in return for a fairly hefty sum of money.

The mail, as it was forwarded to us, explained to those being targeted that a third party had sought to register the name of their company and, unless a fee of several hundred was paid within three days, the brand name would be forfeited.

We had never come across the mail before but, instantly, our suspicions were aroused. First, the unsolicited nature of the mail and the demand for money to be paid in a very short space of time caused the alarm bells to ring, while a simple check of the website address of the company involved on scamadvisor.com caused them to ring much, much louder.

That site was able to tell us, in a matter of seconds, that the “website’s owner is hiding his identity on WHOIS, using a paid service” and “does not have many visitors”. We also found out that the site did not find have an SSL certificate, a fairly basic security feature that any ecommerce website should have, and we learned that the site had been set up only very recently. The reviews on Trustpilot were also very damning indeed.

In recent times, credit unions have also been used as bait by scam artists with the Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU) issuing an alert and waring that the scam consists of a fraudster sending a text message and/or making a phone call claiming to be from a credit union and informing the recipient that their credit union account has been put on hold or locked.

The potential victims are then asked to click a link to a cloned credit union website and enter their personal details to verify their account, or they are asked for their personal details over the phone.

The ILCU said it wanted to emphasise that credit unions will never contact an individual member by phone, text or email asking them to click a link to verify their account or give personal account details over the phone.

The bottom line is no reputable organisation will ever contact you out of the blue, either via email or text, and ask you to follow a link to make a payment. If they do, then just say no.

Here are eight common scams to watch out for

The Romance Scam: Victims are targeted online and lured into fake relationships by criminals using bogus identities. Once trust is established, the thieves strike. Victims are asked for money, maybe so their “new love” can visit or help a sick family member. Sometimes, their new love has a plan to invest for the “benefit” of the victim.

The Fake Rental: Scams involving rental properties are increasingly common as criminals exploit the housing crisis to get people to pay deposits for rental properties that do not exist. They use the same bogus property, the same names and backstories and the same pictures of properties pulled randomly from the web in multiple attempts to defraud people.

Caller ID Spoofing: Calls come from Irish mobile or landline numbers carrying dire warnings about compromised PPS numbers and imminent arrests.

The Fake Invoice Scam: Criminals send emails to businesses and individuals purporting to be a legitimate supplier. These emails contain a request for the firm to change the bank account details on record for the supplier to a new bank account. The account is controlled by the criminals. Nothing might happen for weeks or even months and, in many instances, the business does not know it is a victim of this scam until the legitimate supplier sends a reminder invoice seeking payment.

The Smishing Scam: Text messages come from banks asking people to follow a link or submit some personal details on the basis that suspicious activity has been noted on a particular account.

The Bogus Delivery Scam: You get a text message from a delivery company to alert you that a delivery has been attempted but you weren’t home. Alternatively, a message might land warning that customs charges have been attached to a delivery which is being held until you pay up. The text message will come with a link to a site that is dressed up to look legitimate but if financial details are entered, the criminals can quickly gain access to a person’s finances and drain accounts.

Cryptocurrency Scams: Promises of large returns on crypto investments are becoming more common and are a rich seam for criminals.

The Missed Call Scam: You miss a call from an unknown number and when you return it, you get through to an answering service. You stay on the line for a few minutes to find out what is going on and pay exorbitant rates for doing so.

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