The amount of online fraud by email, phone and text message in Donegal DOUBLED last year.
Figures released at the Donegal Joint Policing Committee meeting revealed an overview of fraud within the county last year compared with the previous year, 2022.
And the worrying trend showed that the number of phishing/vishing and smishing frauds in the county doubled from 40 incidents in 2022 to 80 incidents last year.
Phishing, smishing and vishing are all methods of identity fraud that differ in how scammers contact people be that by email, text or phone so they can steal personal details or financial account information.
As well as online fraud, deception fraud in Donegal was up 59% from 44 incidents in 2022 to 70 in 2023.
Investment fraud was also up from less than 10 incidents in 2022 to 16 last year.
Money laundering incidents increased from 14 incidents to 16 incident while there was a major reduction of 36% in accounts being taken over from 53 in 2022 falling to 34 last year.
The overall number of fraud incidents rose by 11% from 261 incidents in 2022 to 291 incidents last year.
