Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Shutterstock/losbkru

'You deserve this, you c***': Scammer seeking credit card number verbally abuses Cork woman

The woman had googled a helpline number to gain access to her emails, and called up what she thought was Google’s call centre.

This article contains explicit language

A CORK WOMAN seeking access to her emails recorded a conversation she had with a scammer, where she said she was going to pass on her credit card details before he started abusing her.

Speaking to the Neil Prendeville Show on Cork’s Red FM, Sarah described how she was verbally abused by the call centre worker when she was asking for help to re-access her email account.

She had googled a helpline number for Google to regain access to a gmail account she had been locked out of. She called the first number that appeared in the search.

Sarah said: “It was a local 021 number. When I rang it, the location comes up as Cork.

I was talking to him a few times before I actually recorded it. It got ridiculous, the things he was saying. I was like ‘what?’

She said that she was originally quoted €300 initially for them to restore access to her account, but was then quoted €200.

The recording of the conversation was played out on the show. The man can be audibly heard calling Sarah “a c***” after she told him she had an iPad in front of her instead of a computer.

“You just lied to me,” the man, who referred to himself as Jonathan, told her. “You deserve this, you c***… I don’t give a shit, I don’t give a fuck.”

She responds: “Excuse me? Do you get paid to abuse people instead of helping them? Why are you speaking to a customer like a dog?”

Speaking to Neil Prendeville, Sarah admitted she had fallen for the scam and would have given over her credit card details until the man on the other line started to verbally abuse her.

“I thought this guy was from Cork,” she said.

Sarah added that he had threatened to hack her emails and delete all of her messages if she didn’t pay them.

When the show called the same number, the person who answered said that the company was based in Ireland but would not say where.

“I was fooled,” she said. “I had no idea this was a fraud until he started calling me all these names. I just thought it was Google. I trusted what I had looked up on Google.”

The gardaí advises people with any suspicions about potential scam callers to contact their local garda station.

“Be extremely sceptical of any uninvited call received and do not rely on phoning back the number to verify authenticity,” they said.

Read: Ennis man who stole €460 from Ed Sheeran fans jailed for 9 months

Read: Man with intellectual disabilities loses control of income after spending money on dating sites

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

Close
20 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute See My Vest
    Favourite See My Vest
    Report
    Aug 21st 2014, 3:59 PM

    If you want something kept private then don’t put it online. Least of all on social media. Users need to take some responsibility for the volume of personal information they happily put on the internet.

    108
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Neal Ireland Hello
    Favourite Neal Ireland Hello
    Report
    Aug 21st 2014, 4:09 PM

    It’s a little more complicated than that.

    30
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute David Kearney
    Favourite David Kearney
    Report
    Aug 21st 2014, 4:19 PM

    No it really isn’t. If its private don’t put it online. No need to blame Facebook for peoples need to blab.

    60
    See 5 more replies ▾
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute The Throwaway
    Favourite The Throwaway
    Report
    Aug 21st 2014, 4:23 PM

    It isn’t solely what people put up online.
    It’s about Facebook tracking your online habits, the sites you visit. Your GPS tracking data through your smart phone is also used. And it’s about the right of that company to sell people’s data on to third parties.

    So it is a little bit more complicated than that.

    49
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute See My Vest
    Favourite See My Vest
    Report
    Aug 21st 2014, 5:49 PM

    Everything tracks your online habits not just Facebook as for the GPS tracking, if people didn’t freely tag themselves in every movie theatre, sporting event and restaraunt they visit then you might have a point. I’ve seen people gag themselves watching movies at “my comfy couch”

    Online privacy is never going to happen. The sooner people realise that and adjust the information they share accordingly, the sooner we’ll all be safer “on our comfy couches”

    22
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute David Kearney
    Favourite David Kearney
    Report
    Aug 21st 2014, 6:51 PM

    Still, everything they track you put online or someone did because its interesting. Either way its never private and banning it online is just backwards.

    4
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Petra Madill
    Favourite Petra Madill
    Report
    Aug 21st 2014, 7:12 PM

    Checking in at your home address or any other private home address always seemed unbelievably stupid….. There’s even a b

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Petra Madill
    Favourite Petra Madill
    Report
    Aug 21st 2014, 7:12 PM

    There’s even a bloody map

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Richard Cynical
    Favourite Richard Cynical
    Report
    Aug 21st 2014, 3:49 PM

    Everybody delete your Facebook!

    71
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Pinel G
    Favourite Pinel G
    Report
    Aug 21st 2014, 4:14 PM

    i challenge anyone to delete all their private messages, comments, and friends on Facebook. then delete your account…Under Section 3 of the Data Protection Acts, you have a right to find out, free of charge, if a person (an individual or an organization) holds information about you. write to Facebook and ask them for everything they have on file about you within 21days you will be surprised to see that all these private messages, comments, friends and all other information will be pages long nothing is deleted from Facebook you may think its gone!!

    69
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Phil O' Meara
    Favourite Phil O' Meara
    Report
    Aug 21st 2014, 3:57 PM

    *Like*

    37
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel

 
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds