Charities and welfare groups are warned to be vigilant about emails offering donations.
An Garda Síochána is advising charities and welfare groups to be vigilant about a new email scam doing the rounds. Instead of being invited to invest money, this scam offers donations.
The scamsters are target specific, preying on businesses in trouble, senior citizens and in this case charity groups who rely on donations for their very existence.
Garda press relations officer, Superintendent John Farrelly finds this scam unusual as it is offering money. A typical scam email appears to be from a woman asking to a make a charitable donation on behalf of her sick father. But for this transaction to take place,
You need to contact his lawyer, before forwarding the necessary details, address, phone, fax, email and of course that vital signature.
At this point the charity finds money flows out, not in to their bank account.
Superintendent Farrelly warns people not to get involved with these sort of emails unless they have a longstanding acquaintance with whoever is offering to make the donation.
Denise Cox set up Ireland's first email publishing agency and is the founder of the website IrishAnimals.ie. She has alerted other animal welfare groups about the email scam as she fears they might find the offer of a donation too good an opportunity to miss. In short,
If you receive an offer which sounds too good to be true, the chances are, it isn’t true.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 13 March 2002. The reporter is Sharon Ní Bheoláin.
