Gardai are warning businesses not to fall for an invoice redirect scam as they revealed two companies lost over €650,000 to fraudsters.Crafty scammers are sending emails to businesses or individuals pretending to be one of their legitimate suppliers.
They ask the business to change the existing bank account details that the business has for the supplier, to bank accounts controlled by the criminals.When a payment is requested by the legitimate supplier for services rendered or goods supplied, the victim acts on the new banking instructions and sends the payment to the criminal’s bank account where the funds are quickly transferred or withdrawn.
A garda spokesperson said: "In many instances the business does not know it is a victim of this crime until sometime later when the legitimate supplier sends a reminder invoice for payment." A businessman who was the victim of the scam has provided the following advice to those who are at risk:Our Irish Mirror Sports page - which brings you all your Irish and UK sports news - can be found here.The Irish Mirror Twitter account is @IrishMirror while our sports account is @MirrorSportIE.