40 people scammed out of €50,000 in 24 hours

Another 40 people have fallen victim to email or SMS scams, with scammers pulling just over €50,000 out of the bank accounts of these victims in just the last 24 hours.

Police said in a statement that it was receiving record amounts of reports of such scams, and made a renewed appeal for the public to be cautious about where they enter personal details.

These scams see criminals using portals built to seem like local entities such as postage operators or banks to induce people into sharing personal details with them – usually by asking them to insert their bank details to pay a small fee to release a mail package or to confirm their details with the bank.

Police said that they have been receiving reports about these scams from as far back as the last week of April, and that its Cyber Crime Unit had been asked for technical assistance in over 400 reports.

All in all, police said that scammers have pulled around €400,000 out of victims’ bank accounts.

The police said that the public should be careful when receiving messages, and should not hurry into clicking links and entering private information.

If one analyses the website which the link takes them to, police said, it becomes clear that the website address – better known as the URL – is not genuine, even though the website itself would look very similar to that of the company which it claims to be of.

Police said that those who fall victim to such scams should immediately notify their bank about the transactions and file a report with the police.