Gardaí in Ennis have issued a warning about online fraud and have confirmed they are investigating a report of one such incident.
Crime Prevention Officer for Clare Sergeant Catriona Holohan outline the circumstances of the incident.
“The injured party in this case believed that they were purchasing Coldplay concert tickets from a friend. They had seen an ad on Facebook and believed it to be their friend, they transferred the funds and never received the tickets. Fraudsters are always enhancing their strategies,” Sgt Holohan said.
So how are they finding out our details?
Fake Friend Requests: Social media account holders receive friend requests from people that they do not know or from people already in their contacts who have had their accounts hacked. Accepting these requests causes your account and that of your friends to be hacked and the personal data accessed.
Twishing: This is a combination of the words Twitter and Phishing and is a form of phishing in which a message is received on a person’s Twitter account in an attempt to obtain personal or security data by directing the recipient to a bogus website.
Clickbait: This is a post on social media which is worded in a way to attract the users’ attention and persuade them to click on the link to find out more. Often times these links are to bogus websites which seek to compromise your personal or security data.