‘Smishing’ accounts for 94% of all fraud cases from January to October this year.
Allied Irish Bank is urging customers to remain vigilant against fraud, especially as people take time off to relax over Christmas, and has revealed the five most common fraud methods seen in 2024.
5. Money mules: Criminals will use other people’s accounts to transfer stolen money to conceal their crime and can trick anyone into using their accounts. Without access to accounts, criminals will not be successful. Money mules are often recruited to help criminals launder money from online scams, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and other crimes.
4. Purchase scams: Criminals can clone genuine websites to offer fake discounts to target unsuspecting customers. This can happen with any site and these cloned sites often look and feel genuine. AIB advises those shopping online during busy times such as Christmas and New Year to check for the padlock symbol in the address bar, to research the site for negative reviews, verify contact details and avoid direct bank transfers.
3. Investment fraud: Criminals are using social media to advertise highly profitable investments and while these ads often use advanced technology to appear legitimate, such high return investments are usually not genuine. The bank suggests taking some time to research the provider, verify their existence, that they are regulated and to seek independent financial advice.
2. Phone call fraud: Criminals often use phone calls to get personal and financial information for their own financial gain. They may pretend to be from a legitimate company and may even display a genuine phone number and tricks used on these calls include offering to fix an issue with broadband or offering a refund. They may also try to take control of the customer's device.
1. Text message fraud: Fraudulent text messages claiming to be from reputable banks, delivery or utility companies are by far the most common type of fraud, with 94% of all cases between January and October 2024 being ‘smishing’ related. These messages are usually followed by a phone call from the bank, occasionally displaying the bank's actual phone number.
It is important to remember that a bank will never:
- request security codes sent by text message, push message or from your card reader;
- send a taxi or courier to collect your physical card, PIN or any security details; or
- provide a selfie through our mobile app after receiving a call or text message.
AIB’s head of financial crime, Mary McHale, said: "We are urging people not to let their guard down and to remain vigilant, especially over Christmas and the New Year when many of us will be shopping online. AIB will never ask customers to log into a website or phone a number contained in a text message. We urge customers to end any conversation where someone is purporting to be from their bank and is requesting security details including security codes, one time pass codes, or even to supply images of their face.
"Where customers have been scammed, we will deal sympathetically with them on a case-by-case basis. At AIB, we have a strong record in protecting our customers from fraud and we are continuously investing to enhance our fraud monitoring systems in response to new and existing fraud trends, and to educate our customers via online messaging, emails, and targeted social media alerts. We also work closely with industry stakeholders including telecommunications companies, the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI), and the Gardaí to detect and report fraud trends, as it’s only by communicating and coordinating across the whole of society that together we can be effective in combating these criminals."