Scammed businesswoman Pat Murphy speaks out to 'save others from the same thing'
Fraud rates have risen exponentially in Ireland over the past 12 months of the pandemic.
A businesswoman in the midlands has spoken of the sophisticated scam which nearly cost her the contents of her business’s bank account in the hope “it will save others from the same thing”.
Pat Murphy, the co-owner of a stove dealership in Co Longford, paid tribute to the anti-fraud gardaí which she dealt with, but said the assistance of her bank left a lot to be desired.
She told her story to the amid news that fraud rates have risen exponentially in Ireland over the past 12 months of the pandemic.
In late September the CSO announced that fraud incidents had risen by 40% in the 12 months to end June 2021.
Most of those incidents related to attempts to obtain personal or banking information from people by phone, perhaps unsurprising given the explosion in automated phone dialler scams which affected much of the population in the early months of the summer.
For Pat however, the scam encountered was a great deal more plausible.
“It was last Monday and we got a call from someone claiming to be with TNT, a courier company that we have a lot of dealings with,” she says. “It was a girl with an English accent, calling from an 0044 (UK) number, asking us to settle a small amount of underpayment on import charges, saying once that was clear she could guarantee delivery the next morning.”
“We run a business where we get parcels in every day, we import from Italy and the UK and we’ve already had issues with imports over Brexit over who’s being held liable for delivery charges. It was a charge of €3.12, so I said fine and gave them my card number.”
She explains that her partner wasn’t convinced by the call, “so I kept dipping in and out of my account all day to make sure all was ok”.
“In the end I transferred everything out bar what was needed for the end-of-month bills. Then at 5pm, the transactions started happening,” she says.
All told, the scammers took over €5,000 from the company’s account before Pat took her emergency action. The name on the transactions was that of a well-known credit card company.
She immediately called Bank of Ireland’s anti-fraud section which led to 50 minutes on hold before she was told they probably wouldn’t be able to stop the scam.
“But they did say we needed to go to the gardaí to get a PULSE number for the crime.”
“So we drove straight to Longford Garda Station. And they were lovely, very reassuring. They took our statement and had a file ready by the next day. The next morning I had a text from Bank of Ireland with an email address, asking for the PULSE number. In the end there were two, for two crimes - phishing and takeover of account numbers. I gave them to BOI, they reimbursed me, and the matter was resolved.”
“The problem is I’m sure I’m not the only one,” says Pat. “I wouldn’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
What is also less than clear is if the scammers will be apprehended, or if in this scenario the bank is the main loser.
“They told me they will come back to me to see if I’ll give a fuller statement,” Pat says. “Hopefully they do.”
A spokesperson for the bank said: "Fraudsters pretend to be from banks, telecommunications providers, delivery companies, social welfare departments, and post offices, but their aim is always the same, to try to get you to hand over confidential information. While we can’t comment on individual cases, consumers are being targeted more than ever before with fake calls, texts and emails, and we strongly encourage them to adopt the “zero trust” principle — never trust, always verify — when it comes to protecting their personal and financial information."
