Fraudsters turn to phishing as Gaeilge
Dara BradleyNews
Innovative foreign scammers are trying to cash in on the ‘Deontas’ bonanza in the Connemara Gaeltacht – by phishing ‘as Gaeilge’!
Phishing is the fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies or people in order to induce the recipients to reveal personal information such as credit card details or passwords.
It also includes emails from ‘friends’ in distress in foreign countries, looking for help, or from people, who out of the blue, email to say you’ve won the lottery in an exotic place, all in an effort to get your bank account details.
Maybe it’s because of the 1916 celebrations; or maybe they heard that Galway is now a bilingual city, because the fraudsters have begun phishing – ag fioscaireacht – as Gaeilge.
Now the scammers have become equal opportunity scammers, and are emailing people using the Irish language.
Galway residents in recent weeks have received emails from a Pierre Marques, from France, which is written ‘as Gaeilge’.
Like all these scams, the author has a sob story – in this case he’s got cancer of the throat and is about to die – and is looking for someone to offload his inheritance to.
He’s got €1.85 million and wants to give it to the recipient of the email. But just like the English versions of these emails, which are often written in pidgin English, the Irish version are worse.
Bríd Ní Conghaile, of Gaillimh le Gaeilge, joked that the latest phishing email as Gaeilge was so poorly written it was unintelligible.
It was quite clear, she said, that the scammers used ‘Google Translate’ to directly translate poorly written English emails into Irish, which makes it near impossible to read, let alone understand.
“He should use some of that €1.85 million he’s trying to give away, and go and get Irish lessons, ranganna Gaeilge, with Conradh na Gaeilge,” she laughed.
“There is no sense to the email; it just doesn’t make sense. You can understand bits of it. You know that awful feeling some people get from the sound of someone scratching a blackboard – well that’s the feeling I get when I read this. It just grates; it makes no sense.”
Ms Ní Conghaile said no business or Irish-speaking person would be fooled by the email because it was so badly written.
Ms Ní Conghaile, whose job it is to promote the Irish language among the business community in Galway, as always, saw the positives in it.
“I suppose it’s a good thing that the scammers thought to write it in Irish. It shows that the language is relevant, even if it didn’t make sense!”