An Indian nurse in Bray was lucky enough not to lose money from fraudulent calls in related to Social welfare scheme. She got call from different numbers for almost three hours scamming and then tried to extract the funds online and then through banks.
It started with a call from unknown number and didn’t picked because of her busy schedules. Later she got another call on a leave day and the call was similar to the government department calls and diverted to an automated machine. This is to convince the receiver that the call is from authentic government department.
There was two options to select, option 1 connects to social welfare department and the speaker was in Irish accent. They give information that there are two Garda cases pending one related with Drug trade and another of Money laundering. The person who stated from social welfare department does not have any details of the receiver like Name, PPS number or Email.( Please note that nobody should share any personal information to any caller from unkown number or with government departments.)
When the victim said the PPS number to the fraudster they confirmed that above mentioned cases are in her name and they read out the charge sheets for both cases. .Immediately the call is transferred to person whom they said is from Garda.
The person who pretended to be from Garda warned that if she can’t help in finding the actual culprit within 48 hours then they will arrest you from your residence. They asked to move away from the relatives or other members present in the house while the conversation is happening. Then scammers said , a Garda and Social welfare officer will visit your house and you can settle the case by paying € 1000 and the fraudsters informed that after payment you will be issued new PPS number after cancelling the existing one. These scammers won’t give you time and opportunity to share the information to others and they will give the link for payment via email. They had given paybis.com link to purchase the Bitcoin.
The victim couldn’t complete the payment online due to technical reasons. Then the scammers threatened that she must come to the nearest Garda station in Bray near to her residence.
The victim got panic thinking over the drug trafficking case and jail terms in a foreign country and as per the request made by scammers she was ready to go to bank and withdraw the requested money and then deposit in the fraudsters account. She went to the bank as requested by the scammers who were on call during the process, they warned that don’t give any clue to the bank for withdrawing the money. She was asked to withdraw the full amount in her account as they tricked that she may lose whole money in the bank if not taken right away.
She could withdrew only €5000 from the bank, if the scammers knew the amount she had withdrawn they must have made new plan to loot the entire money. Next they suggested to deposit the money they requested to deposit in the ATM they suggested .The scammers keep on warning no to speak to her partner in home as they framed that all the crimes must have done my the partner. But she felt doubtful about the whole proceedings and informed the partner about the scan and they confirmed with a friend and she get out of the fraudsters narrowly.
The phone calls made to her are from below numbers
049 3435928
049 4173423
28 67771
041 1627318
048 9681876
048 7806796
041 2374129
045 2419216
When newly citizens come to Ireland ,many fall to these kind of scammers thinking of consequences of jail term for drug trade and related crimes. Later the nurse passed the information to bank and Garda. They insisted that they won’t manage any cases through telephonic conversation but in person only.
Its always better to check unknown numbers and then record the conversation .If they find it doubtful always google the numbers and also search numbers of government departments from respective websites. These information’s should be passed to the spouses and friends immediately so that the truth can be identified without losing money.
Thousands of people are affected every year in Ireland by scammers who try and swindle them out of their hard-earned money. Unfortunately, more and more people are being caught out since the Covid-19 pandemic began on these shores in March of last year. Some of the scams are extremely elaborate, leading to online users getting caught in the traps. A number of Garda scam warnings have been issued in recent weeks.