Scammers increasingly targeting Irish workers nearing retirement 

A rise in complex investment scams highlights the need for consumers to protect themselves from frauds, writes John Hearne

While banks deploy a range of measures to protect customers, fraudsters are increasingly targeting businesses and consumers directly, so it important for us all to know how to protect ourselves.

Latest figures from fraud awareness initiative FraudSmart show  investment fraud jumped by 25.6% in the first half of 2023. During that period, victims were conned out of a total of €8.6m.

Niamh Davenport is head of financial crime at the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI), which operates FraudSmart. She is concerned at the rise in increasingly complex investment scams and says consumers need to protect themselves from scammers.