New hub launched to help people in Ireland spot scam ads and texts

What the Scam Ads Info Hub does

The ASA's 'Scam Ads Info Hub' is aimed at raising public awareness, helping people to spot the ads and to know where to report them. The launch was reported by RTÉ News.

Speaking on Today with David McCullagh, ASA chief executive Orla Twomey was blunt about the limits of her own organisation: scammers are "criminals" and the ASA has no role in "prosecuting or tracking them down."

"Every piece of information that we can put out there to help the public understand how to look at scams," she said.

"It's not necessarily how to identify each one, but to be able to have this mentality of stopping, thinking, and checking if something is actually accurate.

"If it's too good to be true it's probably not true."

Where to report a scam

Ms Twomey said there is "such a myriad of scams" running to a "half-a-trillion dollars globally annually."

Platforms carrying the ads "do have a responsibility", she said, "but obviously things do get through because the scamsters are changing the way they do things."

Her advice is simple: report anything you think is a scam to the platform, and to the ASA and gardaí, depending on the type of scam.

"We're not going to stop the scamsters because it's such a valuable industry for them, but even if we can cut off a little bit of their pipeline, that would be helpful to the public," she added.

It follows a Garda fraud warning for students earlier this month.