The heartless trick has the potential to cost innocent people to lose thousands of euro
On the morning of November 29, Wendy, an international student from China, received a call from what appeared to be AIB Bank. The person on the phone claimed that she was a staff member of AIB. It was said that there was a problem with the flow of funds in Wendy’s account and the account was locked, requiring the Chinese student to click on the link via text message for verification.
However, once the link is clicked, the personal account information on the web page will be obtained by fraudsters, jeopardizing the account.
Scammers don’t just use the identities of AIB bank staff. Other students who attend the University of Limerick said they have also received fraudulent calls, including fraudulent text messages. Among them are scam calls claiming to be from local Irish customs, asking students to click on a link to pay customs duties. Once they click on the link, they will be deceived.
It should be noted that the link used by the scammers is the same as the official Irish Customs website. If you encounter the above situation, you must send an email to the relevant unit for information verification.
According to an article on the public account published by the Chinese Embassy in Ireland, some fraudsters pretended to be staff members of the Chinese Public Security Bureau and other state agencies, and committed telecom fraud against Chinese people in Ireland, especially international students.
The fraud methods are endless, the tricks are new, the identification is difficult, the number of people deceived is large, and the amount of money defrauded is also rising.
International students in Ireland are reminded to increase their awareness of prevention and be highly alert to suspicious calls claiming to be “police handling a case”, “suspected of money laundering”, “prohibited mailing” and so on.
The embassy, consulates, police and public security and judicial departments will not handle cases via phone calls or text messages, let alone make payments or transfers!
If you are unfortunately defrauded, you must call the police as soon as possible, contact your family, teachers, classmates, and embassy and consulate staff to seek their help and prevent the fraud from being carried out.