GARDAÍ in Ennis are investigating a report of online fraud where the injured party believed they were purchasing tickets to see Coldplay but never received them.
Instances of online fraud are increasing across Co Clare and the latest incident occurred when the injured party believed they were buying tickets to see Coldplay from a friend online.
Catriona Holohan, Crime Prevention Officer explained, “They had seen an ad on Facebook and believed it to be their friend, they transferred the funds and never received the tickets. Fraudsters are always enhancing their strategies”.
She said fake friend requests, twishing and clickbait are among the ways in which fraudsters are accessing details. “Social media account holders receive friend requests from people that they do not know or from people already in their contacts who have had their accounts hacked. Accepting these requests causes your account and that of your friends to be hacked and the personal data accessed”.
Twishing is “a combination of the words Twitter and Phishing and is a form of phishing in which a message is received on a person’s Twitter account in an attempt to obtain personal or security data by directing the recipient to a bogus website”.
Clickbait “is a post on social media which is worded in a way to attract the users’ attention and persuade them to click on the link to find out more. Often times these links are to bogus websites which seek to compromise your personal or security data”.
