Consumers are being hit with fraud scams that are "increasingly more complex and credible" with a total of €85m stolen by criminal gangs in 2022. It marks an increase in 9% on 2021 with most of the rise driven by fraudsters who trick people into handing over their bank account details, often through text message scams.
The Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI) appealed to people to not to respond to text messages looking for personal information or to click on links in them and to never give away PINs or passwords. The report warns consumers to be on "high-alert" as text message fraud known as smishing continues to increase.
The Compliance Institute found that one in every two people in Ireland is targeted with spam calls or texts at least every month.
Chief Executive of the Compliance Institute, Michael Kavanagh said, "over a quarter (27%) of Irish people believe their personal data has been illegally shared or leaked".
"Businesses and organisations need to ask how they can best prepare and respond, and compliance professionals need to ask how can the sector best advise, monitor, assess and report?".