Smishing — scam text messages — is now the most common fraud Irish consumers meet. The three dominant scripts impersonate An Post (a small unpaid "delivery fee"), Revenue (a tax "refund" or "verification"), and your bank (an account "frozen" or a payment to "approve"). The common move is the same: a link to a lookalike page that harvests your card or banking details. FraudSMART reports that 78% of Irish adults are targeted by a scam message at least monthly. The defence is one rule — never click a link in an unexpected text — and the report path is: forward it to 7726, tell your bank if you entered anything, and report to An Garda Síochána (112/999 if money is moving now) and the GNECB for serious fraud.
"Banks will never include phone numbers for customers to ring within a text message… The most important thing to remember is to be very cautious of unexpected texts or phone calls and, if in any doubt, ignore the text message or hang up the call, and phone your bank immediately using the number on the back of your bank card."
Most scam advice hands you a list of red flags and wishes you luck. That misses the point of smishing, which is a numbers game built on volume and a single psychological trick. So let's look at the actual texts Irish people receive, why the cleverest one costs only €1.99, and the exact steps that turn a moment of panic into a two-minute report.
If you are reading this because you already tapped a link or typed in your card, skip to if you already clicked. The first hour is the one that counts.
The three texts you'll actually get
Smishing in Ireland is not random. The same handful of scripts run again and again because they map onto things almost everyone is genuinely waiting for — a parcel, a tax refund, a message from the bank.
There are seasonal variants — fake toll and motor-tax texts, fake delivery texts spiking before Christmas, fake 'speeding fine' and 'missed court date' messages — but they are the same machine with a different costume. The US version of the toll-and-parcel text is dissected in our toll-text teardown; the mechanics travel.
Why the €1.99 one is the clever one
The delivery-fee text is the most successful smishing script in Ireland for a reason worth understanding, because the same logic sits under most scams that work.
This is also why "I wasn't expecting a parcel" is weaker protection than it feels. Plenty of people who weren't expecting anything still pay, because the fee is trivial and a forgotten online order is plausible. And the damage isn't €1.99 — once a working card number is captured, it is tested, sold, and used for far larger fraud. One organised An Post smishing operation laundered around €500,000; in March 2026 a key money-laundering figure in it was jailed for seven and a half years, the Irish Times reported.
The tells that never change
Costumes change; the structure doesn't. Four tells are present in almost every smishing text, and spotting one is enough.
If you already clicked — the first 24 hours
Clicking a link or entering details is not the end of the story, but speed decides how it ends. This is the maximum-protection order:
Will your Irish bank refund you?
This is the question that decides how the loss actually lands, and the answer turns on a single distinction.
If the payment was unauthorised — your stolen card was used, or someone got into your account without permission — your bank must refund it under the EU Payment Services Directive, with your own liability generally capped at €50. If the payment was authorised — you entered your card on the fake page, or you moved money yourself because you were deceived — it is legally a valid instruction, and Ireland has no UK-style rule compelling banks to reimburse this kind of authorised-push-payment fraud.
The habits that keep you off the hook
Reporting is downstream. Three habits stop almost every Irish smishing text before it costs you anything:
If you're unsure whether a specific message is a scam before anything moves, the fastest second opinion is the Scam Checker on this site, or our free case review. Both are read by a human and answered within 24 hours.
One rule, end to end
If you take one habit from this piece, take this: never tap a link or pay a "fee" from an unexpected text — open the company's real app or website yourself, or ring your bank on the number printed on your card. An Post, Revenue and your bank will never need you to click to sort it out, and that single pause is worth more than every reporting line that comes after it.
Got a text you're not sure about? Let's look at it together.
Paste the message, the link, the sender. A real expert reviews every case and replies within 24 hours. Free, confidential, no pressure.
Common questions about scam texts in Ireland
How do I report a scam text in Ireland?
Do four things, in order. First, forward the text to 7726 — the free spam-reporting shortcode the main Irish mobile operators run, which feeds the number into network-level blocking. Second, if the message impersonated your bank, An Post or Revenue, tell the real organisation through its official website or app (Revenue lists a reporting route on its 'fraudulent emails' page). Third, report it to An Garda Síochána at your local station — call 112 or 999 if money is moving right now — and to the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) for serious fraud. Fourth, take a screenshot first, then delete the text. Never click the link to 'check' it.
Does An Post ever send texts asking for a delivery fee?
No — and this is the single most useful fact to remember. An Post has repeatedly warned that it does not send text messages asking customers to pay a small outstanding delivery charge (the fake ones typically ask for €1.90, €1.95 or €1.99) by clicking a link and entering card details. The amount is deliberately tiny so it feels trivial to clear; the real prize is the card number, expiry and CVV you type into the lookalike An Post page. If a 'delivery fee' text arrives, it is a scam regardless of whether you are expecting a parcel.
Will my Irish bank refund money I lost to a scam?
It depends on one distinction. If the transaction was unauthorised — someone used your stolen card or got into your account without permission — your bank must refund it under the EU Payment Services Directive, and your own liability is generally capped at €50. But if you authorised the payment yourself because you were deceived — you entered your card on a fake page, or you transferred money on a fraudster's instruction — that is treated as a valid instruction, and Ireland has no UK-style rule forcing banks to reimburse authorised-push-payment fraud. Report it fast anyway: a same-day recall is sometimes the only thing that works. The full Irish refund and reporting map is in our Ireland reporting guide.
What is 7726 and does it work in Ireland?
7726 (it spells SPAM on a keypad) is a free shortcode supported by the major mobile operators for forwarding suspected scam texts. When you forward a smishing message to it, your operator can use the sender and link data to identify the campaign, update filters, and in some cases block the originating number across the network. It does not open a criminal case on its own — for that you still report to An Garda Síochána — but it is the fastest single action that helps stop the same text reaching other people, and it costs nothing.
I clicked the link and entered my card details — what should I do now?
Treat it as an emergency and move in minutes, not hours. Call your bank's 24/7 fraud line immediately — use the number on the back of your card, not any number from the text — and ask them to freeze the card and watch for or recall any transactions. Change the password for any account whose login you entered. Forward the text to 7726, screenshot it, then report it to An Garda Síochána. Then watch for the second wave: within days, 'recovery' contacts may appear promising to get your money back for a fee. They are the follow-on scam. No real bank, Garda or agency ever charges an upfront fee to recover funds.
Sources & further reading
Every figure in this piece is drawn from these authorities and reporting. Click any to verify.