Consumer Corner: How to spot a text from a fraudster

Words to look out for in fraudulent text messages include ‘click here’, ‘account information’ and ‘gift card’

Fraudsters don’t care about you, all they want is your money. And, they will go to any lengths to get that money.

There’s a text doing the rounds pretending to be from An Post. This text goes to the core of online scamming. It looks real. It’s letting you know there’s a parcel waiting for you, all you have to do is pay €1.90. The desire to have this parcel that could be something you forgot you ordered late one night may outweigh the common sense that must come into play when faced with the dilemma — is it real or not?

Like other businesses that have to manage online scamming, An Post does what it can to protect its customers. But this wave of online text scamming is starting to feel like it’s getting out of control and it’s hard to know how far things will go.