Clare’s Crime Prevention Officer is warning that fraudsters are always enhancing their strategies.
It comes as Gardaí in Ennis are investigating a report of online fraud, with the injured party believing they were purchasing Coldplay concert tickets from a friend.
After seeing ad on Facebook which they believed was posted by their friend, they transferred the funds and never received the tickets.
Sergeant Catriona Holohan, who’s based at the Crime Prevention Office at Ennis Garda Station says “social media account holders receive friend requests from people that they do not know or from people already in their contacts who have had their accounts hacked.
“Accepting these requests causes your account and that of your friends to be hacked and the personal data accessed.
“Twishing is a combination of the words Twitter and Phishing and is a form of phishing in which a message is received on a person’s Twitter account in an attempt to obtain personal or security data by directing the recipient to a bogus website.
“Clickbait is a post on social media which is worded in a way to attract the users’ attention and persuade them to click on the link to find out more.
“Often times these links are to bogus websites which seek to compromise your personal or security data,” Sergeant Holohan has advised.
