Fraud Week: An Garda Síochána remind the public to be suspicious of texts/calls asking for personal data Account takeover fraud up a staggering 552% in 2021 •
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Online shopping fraud costs Irish consumers €22m Irish consumers lost €22m in online shopping fraud last year.
This is when the buyer doesn’t receive the goods after making payments, receives fake or counterfeit goods, or items not as described.
Gardaí say up to 10 million online transactions were carried out over the Christmas shopping period.
Detective Inspector Mel Smyth says people should never purchase items that they have found through social media. The most important product for a fraudster is data - and that data is your name, your address, your date of birth, your credit card number and your PIN number.
More than 260,000 credit and debit cards frauds, totalling €22 million in value, hit Irish people last year, leading gardai to warn people about the dangers of online shopping.
As part of Fraud Awareness Week gardai have said online transaction frauds were up 50pc in 2020 compared to 2019.
And with a large increase in online shopping due to Covid restrictions the amount of money being spent online is being taken advantage of by fraudsters who are constantly assessing what is in demand and what they can make money on most quickly.
Detective Inspector Mel Smyth of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) said there are three main types of victims in online fraud - a person who buys something and does not receive it, a person who sells something but gets no payment, and a financial institution when compromised cards or bank accounts are used to make online purchases.