Mother of four urges people to 'be on your game' following WhatsApp scam

'This can happen to anybody': Margaret Leahy is urging people be careful after someone attempted to scam her on WhatsApp.

A woman who fraudsters attempted to target in a WhatsApp scam has urged people to "be on your game" at all times.

Margaret Leahy got a text from an unknown number on WhatsApp claiming to be one of her adult children looking for her credit cards details.

Ms Leahy was wise to the scam in the end and they did not get any information from her but she is urging people to be vigilant.

The scam saw an unknown number message on WhatsApp claiming to be one of her adult children and saying that their phone had broken.

The scammer said they were using a temporary phone and asked for money to buy a new one.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Ms Leahy said that she could have fallen for it until they asked for her to send a picture of her card front and back, something she would never do.

She said that the use of the term "mam" in the messages was something that threw her and made it more believable.

Ms Leahy said she has four adult children and they all call her "mam". She originally opened the message just to check who it was, saying it could have been a message from a number she had previously rang and forget to save.

"It got me straight away using the word 'mam'. That's what really scared me because they could have tried mum or mummy or ma or whatever.

But my kids all call me 'mam'. So I believed it at the start.

Everyone has broken a phone at some stage in their life, she said, so it was also believable for one of her children to message her from a friend's phone.

A message about bank verification was something else that made it believable to her.

"The other thing that got me though, was when they said that they couldn't make the payment because they couldn't get the notification to the phone.

"That is 100% accurate actually. If you haven't got your phone, and the bank sends you the verification text or email. Well obviously if you haven't got your phone, you can't verify. So that really convinced me of what was going wrong."

Red flags

Ms Leahy said it was only when they asked for a photo of the card that she knew it was a scam.

"I would never photograph my card for anybody. And the fact that they asked for the front and the back of it. So then they had all the information.

"So I mean, my kids would never ask for that."

If there was ever a problem and one of her children needed money, Ms Leahy said that she would pay for something and they would pay her back.

But had she been more distracted and had they sent her a bank account number to deposit money into, Ms Leahy said it might have caught her out.

Another red flag was when she asked "which of you [which child] is this. And they said the oldest".

"I believed that, but normally my kids would say your favourite oldest daughter or your oldest son. It was the fact that it's just 'your oldest'. It was a bit of a flag."

I just got what's app messages that I honestly thought were from my daughter until it asked for a photo of my card back and front. I was busy at work or would have spotted a few red flags. Research was done as they used mam which is what my kids call me. pic.twitter.com/p7eEVa49X4

— Margaret Leahy (@gardenngather) March 24, 2022

Being on a work deadline at the time meant that Ms Leahy was only half paying attention, again something that could have caught her out.

"Some of the replies to my tweet were saying 'How could you not have seen this' or 'did you not see the spelling mistakes' - blaming me! Which I think is terrible."

She said that everyone "has to be on your game all the time" which is why she publically mentioned the WhatsApp incident.

This can happen to anybody. I regard myself as a savvy social media person.

Previously Ms Leahy had been caught by an An Post scam, and while the money taken was returned to her, it has made her more vigilant.

"I got a text the day of my birthday, saying there was a parcel that needed tax paid on it.

"Three of my children were abroad at the time. So it was perfectly plausible that there'd be a parcel in An Post to pay for."

Ms Leahy said she had got a text message with a link, which she clicked and paid the supposed tax.

She reacted quickly and didn't lose any money but she reported it to An Post, the Gardaí and AIB, saying she felt that it was "so believable".

"We have a thing now if my children do send anything, they say 'Mam, sorry to ruin the surprise but you're getting something in the post'."

Ms Leahy said that with the rise of scams, it's "getting to a stage where you're afraid to answer your phone".

"Something has to happen. You cannot be on this level of anxiety every time the phone rings."