Former Newstalk presenter George Hook thinks he’s a tech-savvy man – but that didn’t stop him from nearly getting scammed out of €8,000.
It’s International Fraud Awareness Week, and Mr Hook told Tech Talk with Jess Kelly about a very recent experience he had with online scammers.
"You know me and people who know me know, technologically, I’m pretty good,” he said.
“Going all the way to the first VCRs I knew how to to set the timer and do all that sort of stuff.
“I would never be caught by a scam... I am now going on national radio telling the world I'm a chump.”
Internet provider
Mr Hook had already been in contact with his internet provider after experiencing technical issues, and the day after ringing his providers, he got a call of his own.
“This lady says ‘Hi, I’m from your internet provider’, and I said, ‘I'm so glad you rang, it's been down for a week’,” he explained.
“She puts me on to her supervisor, another lady, and she says, ‘I’ve just spoken to my account manager, and he has agreed to a refund of €400 for the inconvenience caused’.
“This is a legitimate internet provider that I've been with for years, and my internet’s down, so give me a refund.”
€400 'refund'
In order to get his “refund”, Mr Hook was told to download an app called Team Viewer, which allows someone to see everything someone else is doing on their phone.
“She says, ‘Go to the app store and download Revolut’,” he said.
“I don’t want Revolut, but she says they use Revolut to process refunds. I say, ‘You have my account details’, but she says we must do it through Revolut.
“Now, Revolut is asking for a picture of my drivers’ license.”
Revolut asks for a form of ID to verify your identity when setting up an account, which is perfectly normal.
'Idiot Hook is beginning to show some cop'
Alarm bells were starting to chime for Mr Hook, however, and it became a full-on siren when he was about to swipe to approve the refund and notices it’s an approval to send money, rather than receive it.
“I read and it said, ‘Pay €8,000’ to an account in South Africa,” he said.
“Finally, idiot Hook is beginning to show some semblance of cop.
“I know somebody in the internet [banking] provider – I dial Michelle... she says, ‘George, we don’t use Revolut’.
“Then I say to your one on the phone, ‘You can stuff your Revolut where are a monkey stuff his nuts’.”
Listen to Tech Talk with Jess Kelly at 5pm today to hear the full interview and see how Mr Hook avoided the scam.
