A Newstalk radio host was the victim of a Facebook catfish scam after discovering that fakers had been using her photos and info to set up profiles to con her listeners.
Andrea Gilligan, the presenter of Lunchtime Live on Newstalk, explained that a fake account popped up with her photo, name, and occupation, and was offering listeners a €1,000 prize. And Gilligan hit out at Facebook’s process of getting the page removed and said it took her a number of days to have it sorted - with the number of victims, if any, yet to be confirmed.
It is understood that the culprits behind the account were sending messages to people telling them they had won €1,000 and could claim their prize by clicking on a link. The link would most likely have led to a website where victims would be prompted to fill in their personal information such as bank details to receive the prize - which is often the case with these styles of scam.
