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A MAJOR GARDA investigation has begun into allegations of serious online abuse and harassment of Munster rugby players.
Senior gardaí revealed today that a probe into the claims has been ongoing for the past few months.
It’s understood some of the alleged abuse was posted online via fake player profiles.
The alleged abuse – believed to have targeted players as well as their loved ones – was reportedly posted via accounts on Twitter and Instagram.
Superintendent Derek Smart, Henry Street Garda Station, said:
We are aware that certain people have made complaints, which we are investigating.
Gardaí would not comment on the alleged nature of the complaints they received.
“All I can say is that an investigation is underway into complaints from individuals. The investigation has been taking place over the last couple of months,” Smart said.
“It’s ongoing. No arrests have been made,” he added.
‘Destroy reputations’
Gardaí said they were not aware of an actual complaint by the Munster Rugby club itself, but rather the complaints are understood to have been made by individuals linked to the club.
According to a report in the Limerick Leader, a source at the club claimed the alleged perpetrators were “actively looking to destroy reputations and falsely represent people”.
Social media accounts were manufactured “for the purpose of attacking and abusing players, while also falsely claiming to be Munster Rugby players online,” they claimed.
Gardaí said they were not aware of reports that the club had sought the help of a “forensic scientist” to help players deal with the alleged abuse.
The Leader reported that a club source told them: “It affects us all, but we all work together to try and get through it. This abuse has been going on for months.
“This is not rugby-related. This is targeted abuse and has moved beyond the players’ themselves. It has linked to their family and friends.
“With the online world you cannot control most of it. It’s other peoples’ accounts, other peoples’ posts. We cannot remove, we can’t delete them. Obviously, we report them, we use the mechanisms that are available to us with regard to reporting on the social media platforms, but it is on-going, it is continuing to happen.”
Munster’s season is reaching a critical stage with the team facing a crucial Guinness PRO14 clash with Zebre at Thomond Park this Saturday.
The squad travels to BT Murrayfield the following weekend, Saturday 30 March, for a Champions Cup quarter-final showdown with Edinburgh.
Munster Rugby did not respond when asked for comment.
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There should be blocks on allowing people purchase domains with big brand names in them also with the use off words such as access, account etc e.g boi and account , Apple and account etc
@@at: how the flock would they police that
@pkunzip doom2.zip: They couldn’t. Tf the blocked “boi” nobody making or selling boilers could have a domain.
The introduction of the addtional gTLDs is a much bigger issue, as it makes domain names so confusing its almost impossible for the average person to determine whether or not one is genuine.
@pkunzip doom2.zip: It can be done
For example, if you go to google and register your brand name etc with them as a trademark, google will not let used use that trademarked word in their ad copy without permission from the trademark owner
ICANN takes a fee everytime you register a domain name and they should have a filtering system in place to block the use of trademarked words along with certain other words such as login, access, account in the domain
It would be then up to the likes of Bank of Ireland to registered BOI for example with ICANN as a trademarked word and for ICANN to automatically block any suspicious use of it e.g BOILogin, BOIaccess, BOIaccount etc etc
@@at: typo, meant to say ‘google will not let users’
@CrabaRev: see my comment above, meant to reply to you
@pkunzip doom2.zip: at the very least there should be a paper trail for each domain registered like their is with .ie domain names. Proof of address and photo ID is required. I know this is to verify your link to Ireland in this case, but it has got to the stage where its needs to be rolled out on all TLD’s.
This particular bank – for which computer operations are outsourced abroad – seems to have more than its fair share of technology problems. From ATM issues to scams.
@Seb Bowyer: This has nothing to do with BOIs IT operations. It is third parties pretending to be BOI
@CrabaRev: I know – but my post remains valid.
This should be easily spotted. BoI never normally call me “Dear”, even just after they’ve fúcked me.
I have been getting them for the last six months. Different number everytime. Im not even with BOI
@Sue Kelly: there coming from AN post , DHL ,TESCO , Aldi all sms messages recently got some stating I won 250 voucher for TESCO just provide my contact number , Small print you will receive sms costing you 3 euro a message registered company in singapore . Is out communications regulator and data protection asleep, Facebook or another app has to be sharing our private details. another scam here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXcZ0aMR5Tc&t=247s
Fierce smell of phish off it
Just my luck on the day I am selected to share in the Ugandan national Bank fund share and my account gets locked. You couldn’t make it up.
If you click on a link called boifrozenaccess.com, you really shouldn’t be using the internet.
@Nick Caffrey: Unfortunately there are a lot of older people out there who don’t have the same skill set as perhaps you do. They have no choice but to use the technology, but many are not competent or comfortable using it.
Youd want to be pretty dumb to fall for that text. Its badly worded, not even Dear Customer.
@James Wallace: damn man, you fixed their weakness. Now many more will fall in the trap.
@James Wallace: lots of older people could easily fall for this, that doesn’t mean their dumb, naive maybe, but not dumb. Unfortunately not everyone is as smart as you…..
Public warns public about well know scamster Bank of Ireland.
I got one yesterday. They use an Irish mobile phone number 353 87 924 0779. The Dear was a giveaway. I have reported it to BOI but will they be able to do anything about it.
Just checked that site. It looks exactly like the BOI Login site, brilliant…..someone who is even only having a slightly off day could be fooled.
It’s not easy to report these to the bank as their anti spam measures block the reports.
Lazy response answers late and no context. They didn’t even give the numbers
Customers should be warned that it is Bank of ireland that is the biggest scam
@Johnny Conway: seriously can’t believe people are still with AIB and BOI…CRIMINAL BANKS!!
plenty of alternatives now so it’s simply Stockholm, syndrome at this stage .
The text scammers should be warning us about the banks at this stage to be fair
I do not bank with them but my wife has an account with them. Its very odd that only BOI customers are receiving text message and non BOI customer are not. How did they match the number to the customer. It has hallmarks of a data breach.
@Alan Kerrigan:
I gather you not read the Journal article
It clearly says people who don’t have BOI account also received the text message
There is also a twitter post in article from a guy who says he don’t have a BOI account and he got the text message
have your say