Barry Lenihan updates Colm Ó' Mongáin on Drivetime about a woman who was scammed out of €25,000 and who is taking her bank to court. The case highlights a difference in the response of banks to so-called Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud North and South of the border. Listen back above.

When Sinéad transferred money she believed was going to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, she thought she was helping with flights, an orphanage and children in need. Instead, the Dublin woman (now living in Northern Ireland) lost more than €25,000 of her pension savings to a sophisticated catfishing scam. What followed has exposed a stark regulatory divide on the island of Ireland, where victims of the same fraud are treated very differently depending on which side of the border their bank account sits.

Speaking to Colm Ó Mongáin on Drivetime, reporter Barry Lenihan outlined how the scam began during the isolation of the Covid pandemic:

"This starts in 2021, Colm, during the COVID pandemic, a time of great loneliness and vulnerability for 'Sinéad' when she was contacted on Twitter by an account purportedly held by Coldplay’s lead singer, Chris Martin."

The online relationship escalated quickly. Sinéad believed she was communicating directly with the singer through messages, calls and video.

"It was friendly initially and then he kind of started saying, I’m interested in you and I like what I see on your pictures. He got to the point where he started asking me for flight money to come to Ireland to visit me… I was taken by it all, you know, and I ended up giving him a large sum of money."

According to Lenihan, the scammers relied on constant contact, emotional manipulation and increasingly elaborate claims, including requests for donations to an orphanage:

"They first asked for sums of £150 and £400 sterling to supposedly assist an orphanage Chris Martin had established. They then claimed the 47-year-old singer needed £2,200 sterling so he could afford a plane ticket to visit Sinead in Ireland. The impersonator then asked for a loan of €22,000."

Sinéad transferred money from accounts in both jurisdictions – one in Sterling and one in Euro – believing the recipients were linked to the singer’s management. The financial fallout was devastating, she says:

"It was my pension account… five years’ worth of savings. I was dazzled initially. I just thought it was the real person. I got manipulated. I didn’t want the conversation to stop."

A cross-border Garda and PSNI investigation followed, involving Interpol and the FBI, but no charges were brought. Where the case becomes exceptional is not in the scam itself, but in what happened next:

"Her bank in the north, HSBC, confirmed Sinéad was victim of authorised push payment fraud and she was given a reimbursement. However, different rules around APP fraud exist south of the border, and her bank in the south, Ulster Bank, refused to refund any money."

Authorised push payment fraud occurs when a victim is tricked into transferring money to a fraudster posing as a legitimate payee. In the UK, victims are generally entitled to reimbursement. In the Republic of Ireland, there is no equivalent statutory protection.

Sinéad now finds herself in court, representing herself, taking legal action against Ulster Bank (which no longer operates in the Republic) arguing that she has been failed by both the bank and the regulator:

"I’m arguing that I’ve been deemed an authorised push payment fraud victim by the UK bank. The UK ombudsman obviously looked at the case as well. The Irish ombudsman has deemed me an authorised push payment fraud victim. One part of the island has push payment fraud laws. The other part of the island doesn’t."

Her case will first be heard in Belfast, where a judge will decide whether Northern Irish courts have jurisdiction. Sinéad believes they do, given her residency and cross-border working life – and that UK consumer protections should apply.

The case highlights a growing vulnerability for consumers as scams become more sophisticated, powered by artificial intelligence and social media impersonation, while regulation lags behind.

Sinéad says she keeps fighting because the loss is life-changing and because she refuses to disappear quietly:

"Twenty thousand euros was a couple of years of pension savings for me. It’s just a lot of money for me to lose. I’d rather not be a victim and cry into my pillow. I’d rather do something productive. We’ll see what happens in court."

Listen back to the full Drivetime report on the Drivetime podcast feed on the RTÉ Radio app or by clicking above.