Gardaí in Templemore are urging people to be wary of ongoing phone scams the latest of which nearly cost a local person in the region of €5,000.
A woman received a text message from an unknown number claiming to be her daughter who had damaged her own phone.
Garda Declan Kinsella of Templemore Garda Station said an exchange of messages convinced the woman that it was her daughter and subsequently transferred what she thought was just over €400.
“They went to put through €5,000 instead of just €400 and when this happened the bank put a stop to it so she wasn’t down money.
“The threshold seems to be a couple of thousand Euro before the bank thought that this was unusual so I asked her to call her bank back and ask them to flag any suspicious activity on my card and bring the threshold down from €5,000 to maybe €500.”
Garda Kinsella is asking people to think before they respond to any such texts.
“Thinks aren’t that urgent that they need it straight away so just review – then try to contact that family member on the old number or if you can’t contact them get in touch with some of the other siblings and they might be able to contact them via Facebook or other methods online just to confirm it was them. And then you can do the transfer safely.
“Don’t rush into things – you dictate the pace and then you can take it from there.”
