A Waterford councillor has warned the public to be extra vigilant having fallen victim to a sophisticated phone scam.
Labour Party Councillor John Pratt was conned out of 900 euro last week.
He told WLR that he was going through a stressful day and was caught at a vulnerable moment.
On Thursday last week, he received a phone call saying there was unusual activity on his bank account, and that €1,100 had been taken out in two transactions.
The callers asked him if he had made these transactions, and Cllr. Pratt replied that he did not.
The callers said they managed to stop one of the transactions amounting to about €200, and gave him a cancellation number that he should retain for further correspondence.
The elaborate scam lured Cllr. Pratt into thinking the money could be all returned if he sent €900 to a certain account first.
“It’s gone. It just shows that even though I was quick enough to react – I reacted as quick as I could – but even within 20 minutes or half an hour of the transaction, there was nothing to prevent that payment from going through”, Cllr. Pratt told Deise Today. “My idea here is, I could keep this to myself and tell nobody, or I can say ‘I’ve been stupid here’. I made a stupid mistake, but I don’t want anybody else to make it. It just shows you that they’re so convincing.”
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