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INTERNET SCAMMERS GOT more than they bargained for when they called a garda station instead of an unwitting member of the public.
An officer picked up the phone when it rang at Thomastown Garda Station, in Co Kilkenny yesterday as he thought he was about to help a member of the public.
The suspicious call was received at the busy garda station from a number originating from caller identity 000644246###.
According to a Garda statement: “The caller stated that he was ringing on behalf of ‘eir’ and that a problem had been encountered in the recent past with an internet router in the locality.
“The caller wished to fix this issue but of course needed for the customer to log onto the ‘Google’ browser and open up a signal strength website and consent to handing over remote access to the caller in order to remedy the issue.
“The caller, was a short time later informed, that he had contacted a Garda Station and strangely enough the call was disconnected! This is a scam. Do not engage. eir have being notified and are aware.”
Gardai from the Carlow/ Kilkenny division posted messages warning the public of the scam in a post on Facebook.
Eir have warned the public what to look out for if they receive similar phone calls.“Phishing phone calls tend to impersonate company personnel or employees,” it said. “The calls will often come from an Irish phone number in an attempt to look more genuine.
“The calling number is often spoofed, meaning it is not the actual number from which the call is originating.
“Some customers have reported receiving fraudulent calls from individuals claiming to be a representative of eir calling in relation to an issue/compromise of their broadband service. The caller may state that in order to fix the issue they need access to your PC/Laptop/device.
The caller may put pressure on you to provide credit card details in order to repair or upgrade the security of the device. If you have received a phone call such as this and are concerned about your security, contact your bank immediately for information on what do next.
“Eir will never require access to your computer or your credit/debit card details in relation to a fault/repair.”
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The first suspicious thing would be Eir actually calling you to fix a fault . The scammers should do their homework first and realise it would take a miracle for that to happen.
@Darren Moore: your right… EIR wouldn’t call you anyone even if it was the end of the world!
@Sean Leonard: They would probably ring and hang up so you ring them back and use credit.
@Darren Moore: the standard is for you to ring Eir and report a problem and for them to deny that the problem exists. When you finally get them to accept that, indeed, there is a problem, they reluctantly agree to send out an engineer. Who never appears but closes the ticket claiming the problem s resolved. Forcing you to have to go through the whole procedure again.
@Foggy Dew: is that an excerpt from the Eir training manual?
@Darren Moore:
Caught out as in not caught and free to continue the scam?
@john doe: operating from abroad, not a damn thing the gardai can/will do.
@john doe: A bit of a play on words here, the gardaí had much the same laugh everyone else does when they get one of these calls, except in this case they made the media aware of it. To let everyone know they realised.
So those ejits didn’t do their research, they didn’t know they’d called Thomastown Garda Station.
And when you realised it was an internet scam you had the call traced in order to locate the offenders and alert local law enforcement, yes?
What? Ah well, now sure it’s probably some young fella just messing around. But de sergeant gave him a good bolloc… I mean telling off.
So you identified an international crime to your very door, and did… nothing?
… Well they won’t call here again…
@john doe: yeah they warning us what to do and when they ring the fecking garda they cant do anything to track trace em…. Ha
@David Bolger: I don’t think tracing will work in India!
My gran got a similar call.
She talked to the nice man for about 30 mins and then told him she didn’t have a computer.
@Shane: My favourite story like this is from a colleague, her mother got a call saying her Windows had a problem, she replied that she had only just got double glazing in and there were no issues.
string them along for a bit. I had the Microsoft windows one. Talked to him for about 5-10 minutes waffling,telling him I couldn’t find windows 10 on my pc.Then told him after a bot that I just realised I was using Linux! He hung up.
@Ben Dunne:
“bit”
@Ben Dunne: haha….fair play Ben. You reminded me of this https://youtu.be/_QdPW8JrYzQ
Congratulation to the Garda to have identify a threat … Caught out is a bit strong word though
@Dominic Leleu: i think the media coverage of this story is pretty pathetic actually…..i know it is quiet / silly season in August and any old rubbish that can pass as a story gets published- but the Garda did not ” catch’ anybody or go any way to stopping the scams – our Cyber Defence Units in Garda and Defence Forces for a country that pontificates about our great tech business culture is absolutely disgraceful……cyber attacks and scams on public and exponentially growing all the time and we think its ok to have a chuckle instead of trying to be a bit more sophisticated in trying to catch and prevent this type of crime- oh lets all have a good chuckle at the guy who called a Garda station and hung up – meanwhile victim after victim gets stung for money and our garda are forced to use a Pulse System that is out of date and not fit for purpose – but sure its grand we can have a good laugh at the criminals – i wonder who are really having the last laugh though……..
Why don’t you put complete number so that people know that the calls from that number is fraudulent !
Must have missed the part where they got caught out. Rang me last week from the Seychelles, but were obviously Indian, stating they have a investment scheme, There so confident I’ll make money they are setting me up with an account with $5000 in it , all I have to do is deposit 250 as a good will gesture.
@Daithi Ó Raghallaigh: Ask them, if they’re so confident, and why they’re wasting their time talking to you, rather than investing themselves. Then as a measure of mutual trust ask for their personal credit card number.
This is how they should be dealt with, by email anyway. By phone I find a fog horn gets rid of them quick enough.
https://youtu.be/C4Uc-cztsJo
ive had a couple of these calls in the past – let them waffle on a bit and then reply to them -IN WELSH ! it doesnt half confuse them !
One gangster ringing another one
Going on months.
Got a call from ‘Eir’ this morning on ‘landline’ which is part of Virgin pack – nice sounding lady with Indian (or thereabouts) accent asking me about my bandwidth.
Hadn’t time to discuss any width I might or not have – told her I was not with Eir – then she left me!
Probably ticked some box off and next time they will try another name!
I preferred the window salesmen back in the day!
More non national’s enriching us with there culture me thinks
@Johnny Conway: no such thing as a non-national, also the calls aren’t coming from Ireland
Received, a notification from Google, stating that I had won the latest I phone worth €1,000.and needed my Bank details to pay 1£ delivery fee.needless to say I didn’t. But they keep notifying me every day for the last 5wks at least.
I got one of these calls. I thanked him profusely for letting me know I had a problem. I told him I wasn’t familiar with computers and he would have to wait while I got my laptop and logged on. I left him hanging on (which he did for 12 mins) and went shopping. When I returned 2 hours later, he had left me a message f….. b…. He was happy to scam me but wasn’t overjoyed when I scammed him back. I don’t think he will call again.
“Got more than they bargained for”. I don’t think so. They just hung up. That’s all. In fact would t be surprised if some Garda was caught out by it
Misleading headline
How stupid to you have to be to let an outside source remote view your computer??
@Chris Keogan: this kind of scam is all about low hanging fruit. 99. 9% of the time they’ll get laughed at and be told to eff off. Occasionally they’ll come across someone older, less educated, not tech savvy, more easily panicked, etc and that’s where they make their money. Filth of the earth all the same.
have your say