Once the work was completed, the contractor emailed Jane an invoice for the total cost of the job, which was about €30,000. “About 10 minutes after I got that email, I got another email from the builder’s email account in which he said he had made a mistake with the Iban [international bank account number]. So Jane sent the initial €100 to the Iban she had been sent and mailed the contractor to say it had been done. This type of scam sees a target receive an email sent by a criminal pretending to be one of their existing suppliers. Then the criminals just wait and at some point – if the scam has been successful – money gets sent to them.

Source: The Irish Times March 02, 2026 15:54 UTC