The Advertising Standards Authority has launched a new online resource to help people spot online scam ads and texts.

While some scams are easily spotted from a mile away — such classic examples include the ‘hi mum’ text that everyone, including those who don’t have children, receives — others are a bit more sophisticated.

Because those scams can catch some people out, the ASA has launched the ‘Scam Ads Info Hub,’ which raises public awareness to help people spot scam ads and shows them how to report them.

Speaking to David McCullagh on RTÉ Radio One, ASA Chief Executive Orla Twomey called scammers ‘criminals’ and said that the ASA doesn’t have a role in ‘protecting or tracking them down.’

‘Every piece of information that we can put out there to help the public understand how to look at scams, and it’s not necessarily how to identify each one, but to be able to have this mentality of stopping, thinking, and checking if something is actually accurate,’ she said.

‘If it’s too good to be true, it’s probably not true.’

Ms Twomey said that global scams bring in over ‘half a trillion dollars’ annually for the scammers, adding that some of the platforms where scam ads appear ‘do have a responsibility’ to tackle the problem.

‘[They do] a lot of work in stopping things getting through, but obviously things do get through because scammers are changing the way they do things.’

Ms Twomey advised people who see something online that they think is a scam to report it to the platform they see it on, and also report it to the ASA or Gardaí ‘depending on what type of scam it is.’

‘We’re not going to stop the scamsters because it’s such a valuable industry for them, but even if we can cut off a little bit of their pipeline, that would be helpful to the public.’

The scam ads info hub is available HERE.