Cork woman describes 'anguish' of having €10,000 stolen from account

She got the money back in the end, but didn't want anyone else to go through the "anguish" she had

Margaret said "every penny" they owned was cleared out in a scam. File picture

A Cork woman is urging people to be vigilant with text messages from banks after more than €10,000 was taken from her account in a scam.

Margaret opened up about her case as she wanted to try and help others so they do not go through the same thing she did. The ordeal was "terrifying" at the time and she is grateful that money was eventually returned to her.

She explained that she had been laid low with an illness and when she got a text to say there had been suspicious activity on her account, she panicked. She pressed the link and the page that came up was the same as her normal online banking page.

“Now I’m not very computer literate, but because the banks are encouraging people to go online, you really have no choice because it’s impossible to go into a bank and speak to a person now,” Margaret said.

A few hours later, she got a phone call to ask was she aware that her and her husband's current account and savings account “had been cleared out”.

Margaret was asked if she had intended on moving money and she said she didn’t authorise any money to leave her account.

'Every penny we had'

“What followed then was four days of absolute worry, stress, sleepless nights and me beating myself up because I couldn’t believe how stupid I was to have pressed on the link.” 

Margaret, who didn’t want her full name revealed, told PJ Coogan on 96FM’s The Opinion Line that “well over €10,000” was involved in the scam.

“It was every penny we had”.

The text that led to the scam had been in a thread of messages that were real ones from her bank, which is why she thought the message was genuine. Margaret has called on the banks to have “more robust systems” in place to help people going through the “anguish” of having been scammed.

She said when the bank rang her, she was told to make a report to the gardaí and to send the details of a Pulse number to an email that was given to her. “That’s the only contact we had with a physical person”.

Margaret said she rang the bank the following morning to try and speak to someone but she was told the bank deals with scams on a “case-by-case basis”.

“The entire weekend we spent worrying, stressed. Our wages had gone into the bank on that Thursday.” On Monday, another text from the bank arrived and she “was half afraid to open it at that stage”.

However, the text revealed that the money had been returned to their accounts but they got no explanation as to what occurred.

“We don’t know what happened, how they got at our money, who took it and we haven’t been able to speak to anybody.

“It’s not good enough that they don’t come back to people physically and tell them.

“You’ve no idea what my husband and I went through. The worry of it for the four days and not knowing. And all we could get was deal with it on a case-by-case basis and that’s it.” 

When a scam happens, Margaret said she wanted the banks to have a person available “to explain what procedures they’re taking to protect you”. Margaret said they were “very grateful” to the bank as they managed to get the money back but they had been “sick with worry”.

She is now calling on people, especially people who may not have the best skills when working online, to be extra vigilant.

“I just want to say to people, don’t click on anything. I think for older people, my age group, we’re not as computer literate and we’re not as up with it as the young crowd are.

“I think people should be so aware of it and if it saves one person from the anguish that we had, it'll be worth it.”