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GARDAÍ ATTACHED TO the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) have been very busy since the pandemic started due to an increase in scamming and fraud-related offences in that period.
Opportunistic criminals were handed a big boost when the Covid crisis began. People were staying at home and many switched to shopping online. This created a chance for those who had the means and expertise to defraud members of the public to develop scams that could steal money from your pocket without you leaving the door.
Whether it’s receiving a phone call from an African or Asian number or an Irish mobile informing you that you are at the centre of a criminal money-laundering investigation, gardaí and Revenue are urging the public to stay wary of cold callers looking for your information.
Even now as the HSE reels from a cyber attack on its networks, people are more concerned than ever about how their personal information might be used by criminals.
So, here’s a guide to all the scams out there and what you can do to protect yourself.
Smishing/Vishing/Phishing
These are your bread and butter scams and have been around for decades.
Have you ever received a text (smishing), an email (vishing) or a phone call (phishing) allegedly from a reputable company or state agency asking you to click on a link? This is one of the most common forms of a scam.
Recently, text messages are sent to Irish mobiles claiming to be from online shopping sites such as Amazon requesting you pay an additional fee or that you are due to pay extra charges on an item. These texts usually come with a link to click and enter sensitive details.
The reason they are still around as a way of defrauding the public is that they work.
For example, gardaí said there were 45 records of phishing/vishing/smishing frauds in 1st week of February 2021, compared to 13 for the same period in 2019/ 2020.
Over €640,000 value of reported crimes in 2020 with €53,000 stolen in one case alone.
The advice from the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) is
• Never click on a link of an unsolicited text
• Never give away personal data like PIN number, card numbers, passwords, one time codes
• Banks would never request a customer return a card to the bank in such circumstances
• Be very wary of cold calls – just because the number looks Irish does not mean it is
• If you are concerned, hang up and ring your bank/service provider from a number advertised in the phone book or on your bill
• If you are expecting a delivery and receive such a text, be very careful. Contact the delivery service.
Phone calls
An anecdotal aspect of Covid-19 has been people receiving calls from far-flung places like Gabon, Oman and Mauritius to name but a few but when you pick up the call, the line goes dead.
Mostly, these calls are made in the hope that you will ring them back and that call will be charged at a premium rate. However, more insidious scams with the callers claiming to be gardaí are on the rise.
Even the Garda Confidential Line (a phone line which allows people to give anonymous tips) was also at the centre of a recent scam.
The GNECB warned that members of the public have been receiving calls from a number similar to the Garda Confidential Line with the caller stating they are investigating fraud activity or investigating a crime and and explaining they require your details to progress the investigation. The phone call comes from 0-1800-666-111. The actual Garda Confidential Line number is 1800-666-111 and does not make outgoing calls.
Another prevalent scam is where a person or automated message tells you there is a warrant out for your arrest/an outstanding fine/ that your DNA has been found in a crashed car or on drugs seized and to prevent further action you are asked to make a payment.
The message from the gardaí is that they are not going to advise via an automated message that you are the focus of a serious criminal investigation. They advise you to contact them and let them know from what number the call came from.
Scammers will also attempt to mimic legitimate Government departments. For example, there have been cases where phone calls and texts from people fraudulently advising they are a named official of the Department of Social Protection and are being advised your PPS number has been compromised.
The message here from gardaí is clear: never ever give out details such as your PPS number over the phone.
If the caller is legitimate they will have no problem with you hanging up and calling the department yourself.
Regarding current welfare scams, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Protection said: “Customers and members of the public are reminded about scam phone calls and text messages they may receive from individuals claiming to be an official of the Department.
“These calls and texts display a range of numbers, including some which may appear to be from the Department’s phone numbers. The Department would like to remind all its customers that it will never seek personal information from customers via text message and will never ask a customer for their bank details over the phone.”
“Any person who receives such a call or text is asked not to disclose any information and to report it to the gardaí immediately.”
Online shopping fraud
In Ireland alone, we were conned out of €22 million last year just by falling victim to online shopping scams.
With the nation enduring one of the longest lockdowns in Europe, fraudsters took advantage of the fact we were spending our money online. Gardaí said there has been a 50% rise in this sort of crime compared to 2019/2020.
While there are many things to look out for to ensure the safety of your details, the rule to remember, according to gardaí, is that if an offer is too good to be true then it usually is.
The main message from the GNECB is to use secure websites and make sure the website you are on is real – not cloned or fake.
You can do this by looking at the address bar on your browser to make sure there is an “https” at the beginning of the web address and a padlock symbol displayed beside the URL before the purchase is made – this indicates a secure connection.
Many online shops also have trust seals – you’ll see these on the homepage or login page of the website.
Gardaí said if a website is asking you to send money to a random PayPal address, wire it by Western Union, pay in iTunes gift cards or only deals in cryptocurrency, that should send up a red flag.
“The majority of the time, those methods are done to avoid scrutiny and ensure that a transaction can’t be reversed,” a garda spokesman said.
Invoice redirect fraud
Last year, over €10 million was stolen by scammers using what is known as invoice redirect fraud.
This is where the fraudsters send an email to a business purporting to be from a supplier etc. requesting the immediate payment of an invoice or transfer of funds.
Gardaí warned that the effects of this kind of scam can be “catastrophic” for businesses.
For example, a firm in Ireland processed a payment of more than €600,000 for the purchase of a product. The funds left the firm’s bank account before they were redirected and the cash was transferred into money mules’ accounts in Ireland, the EU and Hong Kong.
The GNECB has the following advice so employers and employees do not fall for this kind of fraud.
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And the spineless NATO looks on.. God help them.
@Tom Kiely: i bet you my car that if Russia invades a baltic state – NATO wont do a single sh..t. and will be waffling their usual “we dont want to start a war” nonsense. Useles s , spineless alliance.
@Tom Kiely: direct NATO engagement in Ukraine would lead to war between NATO countries and Russia, with a distinct potential for escalation to nuclear warfare. For this reason, invading a NATO country is likely a line that Putin will not cross, but entering a non NATO country to engage Russia is also a line NATO cannot cross. I grieve for the Ukrainian losses, but we would see more pain in a much wider scale if NATO directly engaged Russian forces.
@John Johnes: what do you think will happen if they invaded a NATO state?
@Georg Ludwig Cantor:
@Georg Ludwig Cantor: They can start by implementing a no fly zone through a UN resolution and NATO can then go in. Tony Connolly RTE has s very good article this morning on a ‘Tug of War’. for anyone wanting to catch up.
@John Johnes: we don’t want to start a war nonsense? What is nonsense about not wanting to start a war, especially to defend a non nato state. If they did it for every non nato country then where would it end. It’s awful what’s happening but it would start a world war to stick thier nose in so the smart choice is to avoid that at all costs. There may be a lot of civilian deaths not but can you imagine the amount if WW3 broke out and putin started using nukes. We can’t be short sighted about this as awful as it is.
@Paul Furey: the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are nato states.
@Fandandi: you must have missed the part where Putin was shooting missiles at a Nuclear reactor on Friday morning
@Tom Kiely: NATO are an offense force, not a defensive force. They are the sales and marketing division of the arms industries. Stopping the war is not in their interest.
@Splat: Russia can veto any no-fly zone in the UN.
@Tom Kiely: You hoping for WWIII?
@John Johnes: you are correct but that would mean looking at game over.
Imagine if Putin hits the nuclear button on a couple of western cities,the U.S you’d imagine would hit back.It could be all over very quick.
@Splat: And how do they enforce it? An attack on a military ship or plane is considered as a direct attack on the country it belongs to. This “Something must be done, der ort to be a law” rhetoric advances nothing. Sanctions don’t seem as dramatic as boots on the ground, but think of it this way. Putin is kept in power by the oligarchs because he protects them and makes them money, he’s now costing them billions. What do you think happens to a crime boss who starts costing the organisation money?
@Me Darlin’ Dublin: All heavy munitions were fired at training buildings at the facility and not the reactors themselves. This has been confirmed in a number of non-sensationalist reports. Propaganda and fake news is as popular in the West as it is in Russia. Putin has no interest in Ukraine becoming a toxic wasteland. It’s rich in resources (mineral and agricultural). The cities are irrelevant except to house compliant Government but the land assets are the trophy.
@Georg Ludwig Cantor: no pain, no gain
@John Johnes: nice new account you have there comrade
@Me Darlin’ Dublin: except that’s not what happened. They burned outbuildings as a threat. The reactors can withstand direct impact from a plane. They’re designed that way.
@Kieran Woods: that’s actually not true either. NATO are a defence force.
@Kieran Woods: That’s a BS comment. NATO is a defensive force. When they went into Afghanistan it was against those you perpetrated terrorist activities against an ally! Peace in Europe is very much in their interest.
Now the issue is, if Churchill didn’t enter the war against Germany, what might have been the outcome? He didn’t shy away from battle and Germany was much more powerful than the UK. If there is a nuclear war it will happen because the Russians invaded Ukraine. Putin is not stupid either he knows if he uses nuclear bombs, even tactical ones, there will be a response from NATO.
@John Johnes: If the Russians start invading the Baltic states, it might cost more to fill your car with fuel than its worth…
@Tom Kiely: and face nuclear war?yeah right
@Tom Kiely: I remember as a school-kid in the early 1980s drawing mushroom clouds all over my copy books (and sharks, thanks Spielberg). At 10 years old, knowing about stuff like Mutually Assured Destruction, and knowing that a nuclear war – the WW3 that some people on here are baying for – would last for exactly 28 minutes, before everyone on both sides was taken out.
It’s hideous what’s happening in Ukraine, but NATO rolling into this will actually end the human race. Sometimes you have to make awful “least worst” decisions, and I think Western countries have been very decisive in this — full on, gloves-off economic war, no military escalation.
I do not understand anyone who is asking for NATO to escalate this into a quick and final world war.
@John Johnes: better to stop them now rather than wait until they’re on our doorstep? Russia now following same tactics as the Nazis. Accuse countries that have a Russian ex pat population of genocide and then invade to protect your countrymen. Ireland has 5,000+ Russians living in the country but of course we’re neutral so we’re ok….
@Georg Ludwig Cantor: unlikely. That to me is a bluff. Russia would be a desert.
@John Johnes: if putin gets away with this it will be a matter of when not “if” he invades a baltic state. That’s why Europe is so united atm all be it they have much more to do on the economic side at least.
@John Johnes:You sir, are a ŕêțāřđ of the highest order.
@Tom Kiely: Maybe you missed all the shipments of military equipment from NATO members towards Ukraine?
@Gin & Jetfuel: NATO members acting independently, not as a collective ie not as NATO. Good effort though.
@Me Darlin’ Dublin: Missiles or flares? I thought missiles explode at impact. Videos show the light dropping on the ground fizzed off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to-SZyoxFhI
The US(NATO) need to get out of Europe and other areas on Earth where they have brought nothing but death, pain, murder and misery in every place they meddle in. It’s hard to hear them accuse Russia of the very crimes they themselves are guilty of every day but the global media chooses not to highlight.
@Jordan Salanger: The media were fairly quiet about Russian atrocities in Syria too. I don’t think the main problem is the media siding with NATO. I think the main problem is lack of concern for victims of extreme violence when they happen not to be white Europeans.
@Jordan Salanger: given the gravity of the conflict the we are all seeing in Europe this is a time to be very clear what side you are on and not to play what-aboutary. There is a strong clue to how I feel about your comment contained in your surname.
@Anthony Horan:
whaboutary = exposing the act of expressing outrage at one atrocity while ignoring another.
The children in Yemen are being slaughtered right now in a conflict no less grave. . Their lives are no less important, which I believe is John’s point (correct me if I’m wrong John). No media reporting because our allies are carrying it out
It’s not about taking sides. It’s about condemning all atrocities, not the ones we select because of who is carrying them out.
@Jordan Salanger: two wrongs don’t make a right… But you know that
China refusing to broadcast the Premier league this weekend due to the Ukraine solidarity protest taking place. We know who’s side they’re on.
Someone needs to take Putin out.
@Wood Jackson: well seeing as you suggested it why don’t you do it?
@Wood Jackson: out out.
@Mejewlie: like for Dinner out
@bkyona: He’s already been 69d.
Protest demonstration 2pm today @ GPO
in support of the people of Ukraine.
@Eamonn Tierney: That will put a stop to things. Fair play.
@Eamonn Tierney: I’m sure Vladimir will be watching
@Gavin Linden: No need to be so cynical.
@Anne Busher Collins: you’re right, now’s not the time for cynicism, definitely the time for virtue signaling, but not cynicism.
@Gavin Linden: There is a Russian Oil tanker docking this week. Send it back. Protests show the publics resolve to economically cut this country from our lives.
We survived without a much larger Russia in the 1980′s they have chosen to go back there. Car pool, commuter corridor buses ,creative thinking.
@Albert Brennerman: I’d say delivery is paid for in advance.
BBC reporting that Russians are firing on civilians at the end of the evacuation routes. Sc*^*ags!
@Thomas O’ Donnell: Just like Sky was reporting that Russians fired upon their journalists? Their journalists arriving at the checkpoint on E40 road west at the outskirts of Kiev driving “into” Kiev over the Irpin river? Running back west away from the capital?
https://goo.gl/maps/BXynYgq3H7uCMrV98
Where are all these refugees going?
@JPM: out of Ukraine for a start.
It is so shameful that we as a right thinking nation are not berating NATO and US for their cowardice. They must realise – we are in the middle of WW III and they are waiting for everyone else to be killed…What passing bells for those that die like cattle…
@Me Darlin’ Dublin: WWIII? Really? If NATO and the US get involved, it will be WWIII then for sure.
At the moment, it is not a world war.
@Me Darlin’ Dublin: This is not the middle of WW3, you will know about it if and when that happens.
@David Corrigan: don’t be so nieve…who do you think knocked out our health service last year?…doh…jeez I could go on but please have a look around you…war is not just with ICBM and AK 47
@Me Darlin’ Dublin: God love you. Like Fandandi said above. You will know what WWIII means if NATO and the US get involved.
@Me Darlin’ Dublin: If we’re already in ww 3 why have you gone over to fight in it? What are you waiting for why haven’t you joined the Ukrainian army to prevent people dieing like cattle
@Roy Dowling: I don’t need to examine my conscience in the respect Rory. I’ve been to the FEBA in two conflicts …witnessed atrocities…were citizens were mindlessly obliterated – because right thinking people dillied and dallied – long before you were born probably. If I could still climb over a wall I’d be long gone.
@Me Darlin’ Dublin: we are on the edge of WW3, if NATO and/or the US go in, we will be in WW3 with a madman armed to the teeth with nuclear weaponry that he has already indicated he will use. What is happening in Ukraine is horrific, it is devastating to watch whilst feeling that you are standing idly by BUT to intervene brings much, much worse consequences for both the Ukraine and much further afield. Unfortunately a cautious, hesistant approach is the only option here
Was just wondering is there any chance Russian Generals might turn on Putin with so many Russians losing their lives and the operation not going according to plan.?
@Kieran Woods: That’s a BS comment. NATO is a defensive force. When they went into Afghanistan it was against those you perpetrated terrorist activities against an ally! Peace in Europe is very much in their interest.
Now the issue is, if Churchill didn’t enter the war against Germany, what might have been the outcome? He didn’t shy away from battle and Germany was much more powerful than the UK. If there is a nuclear war it will happen because the Russians invaded Ukraine. Putin is not stupid either he knows if he uses nuclear bombs, even tactical ones, there will be a response from NATO.
As if anything Putin says these days can be relied upon…
Also, people who bring up the nuclear threat (as an excuse for inaction) need to stop calling those who don’t childish. Even in a totalitarian state no single individual has the power to bring about the apocalypse. It surely wasn’t the case in 1962 at the height of the cold war. As much as Putin would like to grab Ukraine and give the west the middle finger, even he knows it’s not worth total annihilation.
There needs to be a humanitarian refuge in the West of the country. With a humanitarian No fly. Therei is No way Europe can absorb all these numbers.
Ukranians want a no fly to break out of the cities and break the lines, to move to fight these Russian armies because they are winning the Russian will not engage them the shoot from far off. They can absolutely win this now because the population massively outnumbers the invading force and nobody has folded as their children are in bunkers.
If you cannot do a no fly , then give a future lease to the Ukrainians of a decent airforce and aclimatise their pilots..
If you cannot do that arm them to the teeth with the best ground to air weapons. So they can ground cover their own movements.
Again pointless war geopolitically, the West is more than Europe and the US, we did without your economic output before so we will do again.
Shell buys Russian Oil- Boycott Shell petrol/diesel
@Jonathan O’Riordan: You’d be hard pushed to find one as I think Shell pulled out of this country in 2005.
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