Garda\u00ed<\/a>, including several from victims who have unfortunately fallen victim to the scheme. Garda\u00ed have warned that scammers’ tactics are evolving, with this latest fraud scheme going to great lengths to convince victims of its legitimacy.<\/p>\nWhile we’ve all had someone try to get us to divulge personal or financial details over the phone or text, such schemes are often easy to see through. The main giveaway is that they will go straight into questioning you about your personal information, without seeming to know much about you in the first place.<\/p>\n
However, this latest scheme employs a longer con, in which the scammer calls the victim to inform them of a problem with their bank card and explains that it needs to be returned to the issuing bank. The scammers claim to be bank representatives and don’t ask for any personal details over the phone, which prevents the usual alarm bells from ringing.<\/p>\n
The major difference with this scam is that not everything is done digitally or over the phone. Once the victim is convinced, the scammer arranges for a ‘courier’ to pick up the card at their home.<\/p>\n
In reality, the person calling at the home is part of the scheme, and once they convince the victim to hand over the card and PIN, they rush off to the nearest ATM to withdraw as much as they can. The in-person nature of the scam can lend it a veneer of legitimacy, and these schemes often target vulnerable people or those living in isolated areas.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed have issued a warning about this latest scheme, urged the public not to engage with these people and asked that any suspected fraud be reported to Garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n
Garda James Masters from Cobh Garda Station explained the scam, he said: \u201cIt\u2019s something that we\u2019ve seen again recently, unfortunately. We\u2019ve all heard of people ringing up people and trying to get bank details over the phone; this is just a different one.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe injured party was rang by a so-called \u2018bank\u2019, and they stated that there were a few issues with the card, and they unfortunately had to take the card back to the bank.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey arranged then for a \u2018courier\u2019 to call at the house the next day, and they were able to get the PIN and also the card. The next day, they were going to an ATM to take money out of the bank.\u201d he told C103\u2019s Garda File.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so important not to engage with these people; they\u2019re evolving, they\u2019re changing their tactics. In this case, the person had a phone call; they didn\u2019t ask for details over the phone, they said we\u2019ll send a courier over from the bank tomorrow to collect your card, it was all arranged. The injured party, in this case, trusted them and handed over the card and PIN.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reports can be made to Garda\u00ed by phone to any Garda Station or to the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These scams often target the elderly or those in isolated areas 14:36, 17 Jul 2026Updated 14:40, 17 Jul…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,7782,61,60],"class_list":["post-555291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gardai","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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