Farmers are being urged to keep an eye on their bank accounts as high levels of fraud attempts have reportedly been occurring in the past number of weeks.
Scammers are using more and more cunning ways of trying to scam money from unsuspecting members of the public by getting their account details while purporting to be from a bank.
In the past number of weeks, a number of farmers have contacted Agriland outlining that large sums of money had been taken from their current accounts without their permission and had it gone unnoticed, the funds may well have never been recovered by the relevant banks.
Earlier this month, the Cavan/Monaghan Garda Division took to Facebook to warn all bank-account holders of the risk.
The statement outlined: “The online frauds are continuing. This week we had an unsuspecting victim receive a text message purporting to be from Bank of Ireland.
“This text stated that an unknown direct debit was added to the victim’s account. This was then followed up by a phone call from a male purporting to be from the bank’s fraud section displaying what appeared to be the correct number of the bank.
“The victim unwittingly thought this to be a genuine call and provided their bank details when asked, and a large sum of money was then removed from the account.”
Concluding, the garda statement urged members of the public to remain vigilant when receiving texts purporting to be from their banks.
The statement further outlined that scammers can impersonate their number to appear similar or almost identical to that of the bank’s or a familiar contact of the unsuspecting caller, and reiterated for all members of the public to be wary of phone calls or texts looking for bank details.
The garda statement concluded: “Remember, fraudsters can spoof a phone number to convince you the call is genuine. Also don’t forget no bank employee will ever ask for your personal details over the phone. Please be alert for such scammers.”