Limerick man duped out of thousands of euro in investment scam

A LIMERICK man was defrauded out of thousands of euro after he signed up with a fake investment company, gardai have revealed.

As part of Fraud Awareness Week, gardai are highlighting various scams and fraud-related crimes which have emerged over the past number of months.

"In simple terms, fraud is where a person is cheated out of money by another person. The fraud can happen either online, in person on through written correspondence," said divisional crime prevention officer Sergeant Ber Leetch.

The area of most concern at present is investment fraud.

"This is where a person invests or pays a sum of money to a company for a length of time, after that time has passed they get their money back plus an added amount, a good return for their money," explained Sgt Leetch who said gardai are aware of at least one such incident in Limerick.

"Last year, a gentleman in his early 60s from Corbally did some research online as he was looking to invest in cryptocurrency. Unfortunately, the website he chose was fraudulent, it was fake," she said.

"He received a phone call from a scammer who offered him an opportunity to invest with the promise of a large return. The gentleman gave his bank details thinking that this company needed it to deposit the profit from his investment but instead

thousands of euro were taken from his account," added Sgt Leetch.

Gardai say research here in Ireland shows that any age group can be scammed, the youngest was 17 and the oldest was 88, the average age was 45. They say scammers are very clever and often have pop-up ads falsely claiming that celebrities or

well-known business people are endorsing or supporting a particular investment.

"The advice remains the same though, don’t give your bank account details to anybody and if you must, make

sure you know exactly who is getting them by checking and checking again. If you don’t know how to do this, ask for help but please pause and think twice," said Sgt Leetch.