Leaked documents show scam call centres pay up to €1,200 for people's data

Leaked documents from two scam call centres have shown that they are paying up to €1,200 for Irish people's data.

The call centres are based in Georgia and Serbia and the documents were leaked to The Irish Times. 

They showed that call centres are paying up to €1,200 per person for data and that Ireland is among the most targeted countries.

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Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, Conor Gallagher, Crime and Security Correspondent of The Irish Times, said the scammers create fake Facebook ads that encourage people to invest their money. 

After people enter their contact details and then get a call from the scammers.

"They'll show them on their fake app how their investment is growing steadily, then they try to get them to invest more and more and more," Conor said. 

He told the story of one man who is aged 76 that was conned out of €61,000.  

Conor said that Irish people are among the most sought after victims because there is very little punishment from An Garda Síochána or the government. 

"We have noticed that the scammers do avoid Americans and people from Germany. That's because the FBI and their German equivalent are much more proactive in prosecuting these scams,"  he added.

One of the most common and effective scam types is called the recovery room scam.

It generally happens after you have falsely invested and involves getting a call from someone pretending to be a Garda or financial services employee.

They will tell you they shut down the scammers and have frozen funds but you will need to pay a processing fee to get your money back.

This is not true though and is just the same scammers trying to squeeze more money out of people.