Warning as Athlone resident hit by €4,000 text banking scam

Athlone Gardai have renewed their appeal to the public to beware of fraudsters posing as banks, after a local resident had €4,000 taken from their account in a text messaging scam.

Sergeant Andrew Haran said the incident was reported to Athlone Garda Station this week, and it underlined the risks of clicking on unsolicited messages purporting to be from a bank or other financial institution.

In this particular case, the local resident received a text falsely claiming to be from the Permanent TSB bank, and stating that there had been suspicious activity on their account which they needed to click on a link in order to resolve.

"Once they clicked the link, to what they thought was their bank, that's where they gave their details to a spurious person who then took their money," said Sergeant Haran.

"We have seen various versions of this scam happening on a regular basis."

He reiterated that banks would never send people text messages or emails containing links to pages which then ask for personal banking details to be entered.

"No bank or financial institution looks for details through a link like that. People should be communicating with their bank via phone or a visit which they themselves initiate."

He said Gardai were currently investigating this particular incident, and the victim would have to liaise with their bank to see whether or not it would be possible to recover the money that was taken.

In general, there has been very little crime in the Athlone area so far this year.

Sergeant Haran said Gardai were encouraging people to continue abiding by the Level 5 restrictions in relation to Covid-19, but they hadn't seen any notable breaches locally by pubs or shops.

"On the roads, things are fairly quiet. We have had some minor accidents, particularly with the bad weather - with the ice being a factor - but thankfully they weren't serious," he said.

When asked about the impact of Covid-19 on Garda staffing in Athlone, he said there were some Gardai who were currently off work because they were close contacts of confirmed Covid-19 cases.

"We have had a few people down, with concerns about Covid, but thankfully we haven't had positive cases throughout the station or anything like that," he said.