Daniel O’Donnell has issued a new warning to fans after his own social media sites were hacked by scammers again.
Daniel was forced to issue an urgent warning to his fans after a scam made the rounds following the passing of his mother-in-law.
Marion Roche, the beloved mother of Daniel’s wife Majella, passed away last month at St Mary’s nursing home in Galway.
Daniel took to his own social media channels to tell fans of the sad news and to pay tribute to Marion.
However, shortly after sharing the news fake pages pretending to be Daniel started messaging his followers.
The country singer spoke on Liveline on RTE Radio 1, Daniel with presenter Katie Hannon to warn people about social media scammers.
He explained “Back a number of weeks ago Majella’s mother passed away sadly.
“We announced her death and obviously people kindly put up a lot of messages of sympathy.
“And then and then there was somebody, it happens very often, set up a Facebook page by the way that it was me replying to these people who were sending me messages of sympathy and engaging with them.
“And I suppose what’s important to know is that these people never sleep.”
Daniel explained that the people who run these pages don’t care what the situation is.
He continued saying: “It doesn’t matter what the situation is be it sad or happy or difficult or whatever they are there trying to take advantage of people.
“I suppose what I would like to say is that when they send a message of sympathy to Majella and the family and myself it looked like I was writing back which I wasn’t.
“And I would be in the same boat I would think, ‘God isn’t it awful nice of them to write back at a time when they are grieving for their mother-in-law or mother’.
“So the people that are doing scams are there at the most opportune moment.”
Katie asked whether the people messaging his fans were asking for anything and he replied: “They weren’t asking for anything other than trying to engage with people and you don’t know what that leads to.
“The engagement is the first step.”
The singer went on to say: “I never answer answer anyone on Facebook.
“The majority of people that have a Facebook page because whatever you’re doing is out there – you’re well known or you’re a singer – we’re not on there going to answer somebody that’s writing on our Facebook page and I want people to know that.”
He finished by saying: “If somebody is writing to you make sure that you know it is them even if it’s somebody you know call them up and ask them.”