Mayo being targeted today by 'Wangiri' phone fraudsters

Mayo is being targeted today by 'Wangiri' fraudsters, a garda officer has confirmed to The Connaught Telegraph.

Garda Mick Toland of the Castlebar Community Engagement Unit revealed a number of people have been in contact with him after receiving such calls which appear to come from a local number because the numbers '94' - the prefix to all landline telephones number in the Castlebar district - appear on screen.

Today saw mobile phone customers in the county town and surrounding areas getting these strange missed calls from Tunisia, their numbers showing up as +216 94 91 2313 or something similar.

People may be tempted to ring back because it bears a similarity to a local number.

However Garda Toland stressed not to do so as the scam is only successful if you return the call.

If you so call the number back, the spammers will charge your phone an extortionate amount of money to even connect the call and for every minute you stay on the line, you will also be charged a high rate. he outlined.

In this case, the scammers would have bought a range of different numbers and then used automated machines to randomly make quick missed calls, giving a person's phone just one ring - which is long enough for it to leave a missed call.

"This is causing a lot of anger and people need to be alert to it," added Garda Toland.