Smishing — scam texts — is now the most common fraud in Ireland. Answer three quick questions and this checker tells you whether the message fits the scam pattern, gives you the official fact that gives it away, and shows you exactly how to report it. Free, anonymous, nothing to install.
An Post, Revenue, your bank and Ireland's immigration service never send a text with a link to pay a fee, log in, or 'verify' anything. If an unexpected text does that — whatever name is on it — treat it as a scam: don't tap the link, go to the organisation yourself, and forward the message to 7726.
Most scam-text advice hands you a checklist — misspellings, odd numbers, urgency — and wishes you luck. The trouble is that the texts doing the real damage in Ireland aren’t the broken ones. They’re the clean, plausible An Post and bank messages that slide into a thread of genuine alerts, arriving the same week you actually ordered something or filed your taxes. A checklist fails exactly when the message looks right.
That’s why this tool is built around a single structural fact rather than a feeling. An Post, Revenue, the banks and the immigration service have each said, publicly, that they do not text you a link to pay or verify. So you don’t have to judge whether a text “feels” trustworthy — you only have to notice that it’s an unexpected message asking you to act through a link, and then go to the source yourself instead. The timing coincidence stops being a weapon.
For the full anatomy of the three texts Irish phones actually get — and why the €1.99 An Post one is the cleverest of them — read the Irish smishing playbook. For where every kind of scam gets reported in Ireland and what your bank will and won’t refund, see where to report a scam in Ireland.
No. An Post has stated plainly that it does not send text messages asking customers to pay an outstanding delivery or customs charge by clicking a link — the fake ones typically ask for €1.90, €1.95 or €1.99. The amount is deliberately tiny so it feels trivial to clear; the real target is the card number, expiry and CVV you type into the lookalike An Post page. If a 'delivery fee' text arrives with a link, it is a scam regardless of whether you are expecting a parcel.
No. Revenue never asks for personal or card details by text or email, and never issues refunds through a link in a message. Genuine Revenue contact appears in your myAccount or ROS inbox on revenue.ie — so the safe move is always to log in there directly rather than tap a link. A text promising a tax refund or demanding you 'verify' or 'reactivate' your Revenue account is smishing.
FraudSMART, run by the Banking & Payments Federation Ireland, gives the cleanest test there is: banks never include a phone number inside a text for you to ring, and never ask you to click a link to log in or approve a payment. The real number is on the back of your card. Scam texts often drop into the same thread as genuine bank alerts because sender IDs are trivially spoofed, so the thread it lands in proves nothing — only the channel you reach the bank through does.
7726 (it spells SPAM on a keypad) is a free shortcode supported by the major Irish mobile operators for reporting suspected scam texts. Forwarding a smishing message to it helps your operator identify the campaign, update filters, and in some cases block the sender 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.
Move in minutes. Call your bank's 24/7 fraud line immediately using 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 transaction. Change the password for any account whose login you entered. Forward the text to 7726, screenshot it, then report it to An Garda Síochána (112 or 999 if money is moving now). Then ignore the 'recovery' contacts that may appear within days offering to get your money back for a fee — that is the follow-on scam.
No — and it is careful not to pretend otherwise. The tool gives general guidance based on the published advice of An Post, Revenue, FraudSMART and An Garda Síochána; it does not see your actual message. When the answer is uncertain, it tells you to treat the text as a scam and verify with the organisation directly through its official app or website. For a real human to look at a specific message, you can submit a free, confidential case review.
Every fact in this tool comes from these Irish authorities. Click any to verify.