GARDAÍ ARE WARNING the public to be aware of “vishing”.

Vishing is the use of a phone by criminals to deceive people into providing personal financial information in an effort to commit fraud.

The scam involves members of the public receiving a telephone call to their landline from an individual claiming to be a “security manager” from a well known store.

The person is then asked to provide personal financial details to the “security manager”.

If they decline, the “security manager” advises the member of the public to either make contact with their financial institution using the telephone number on the reverse of their genuine card or alternatively contact the gardaí and provide this information to them.

The customer then hangs up and assumes they are phoning either the bank or the gardaí as instructed.

However, the fraudster has not terminated the original call and the call remains active resulting in the victim disclosing their personal banking details to the fraudster or an accomplice who has remained on the line.

A recent twist on the scam has been the use of the name of the local Garda Superintendent by the caller.

Scams

Gardaí say they have received a significant increase in reports of this nature from all over the country and victims continue to lose substantial sums of money.

Victims in recent weeks have lost in excess of €38,000. In a case reported in the last two weeks a person transferred over €22,000 on the instructions of a person claiming to be a named Garda Superintendent.

In another case, a person was directed to transfer €30,000 by a caller claiming to be a Garda Superintendent but checked with her local Garda Station who confirmed that this was a bogus request and the transaction did not proceed.

Detective Superintendent Gerard Walsh from the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation says, “these criminals are targeting vulnerable, usually elderly people and I want to warn people to never give anyone details of their bank accounts or credit card numbers”.

Please remember that no genuine person or organisation will call and ask for your details. Gardaí are asking community organisations, relatives or neighbours of elderly people to help us to get this message across.

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