A LIMERICK pensioner has been duped out of €2,000 in a telephone scam where he was advised of suspected unusual activity on his account.
A garda spokesperson said that this is a reoccurrence of a scam where elderly pensioners are telephoned by people purporting to be from a bank.
In this case, the pensioner aged in his 70s was notified that in order to rectify the unusual activity, they were to pay €2,000 via telegram to a named account at a Post Office.
The pensioner did this and then realised that it was a scam and reported it to Gardai at Mayorstone, but by the time the incident had been reported the money was gone.
The advice here is to be very suspicious of phone calls that come out of the blue claiming to be from any financial institution.
“There is nothing stopping you from hanging up on the caller and phoning your bank directly yourself.
“This at least means that you are definitely speaking to your bank. Even your bank won’t ask for all of your details or passwords and they will never ask you to transfer cash via a post office.
“These criminals are targeting elderly people especially so if you do receive a call of this nature presume that it is a scam, hang up and if you want to be reassured contact your bank directly or get a member of your family to do it for you”, the spokesperson concluded.
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