Victim conned out of €1,500 in phone scam

Anton McNulty

A GARDA Superintendent has advised the public not to engage in any telephone conversations with people claiming to be from a bank and wanting your banking details.
Superintendent Joe McKenna issued the warning after a person in Ballina was conned out of €1,500 by a caller claiming to be from a bank. The victim of the crime was told by a person speaking with a foreign accent that money has been removed from her Visa account but she could be compensated.
To retrieve her money, the caller told the victim that they first had to lodge €2,000 to the account. Unwittingly, the victim disclosed their account details over the phone and as a result €1,500 was actually stolen from the account by the fraudster.
Supt McKenna said that anybody who receives phonecalls of this nature should be immediately suspicious and advised the public not to engage with these people and immediately hang up the phone.
“Do not disclose anything over the phone. Hang up, call your bank and check with them first,” he said.
Phone scams are becoming increasingly common and last year more than €240,000 was defrauded from people in a phone scam which spread across the country. On one occasion, one person was defrauded of €62,000.
In the so-called ‘vishing’ scam, fraudsters rang people on their landline and, by exploiting a hang up feature on the phones, trick people into transferring funds out of their accounts to accounts abroad.
The criminals pretend to be from a financial institution, or a retail store or, in many cases, pose as a garda superintendent and elicit bank details and card numbers from people.