Athlone's Mary O'Rourke is urging people to be careful, as part of National Fraud Awareness Week.
A third of Irish people have been scammed out of money.
The average amount taken by fraudsters is just over one thousand euro.
People over the age of 55 are the most likely to report fraud attempts to their bank or the Gardaí.
Athlone's Mary O'Rourke is helping to stop the elderly from being targetted, as National Fraud Awareness Week gets underway today.
She's helping to roll out an awareness campaign, along with the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland, the Gardaí, An Post and Active Retirement Ireland.
The former government minister has been targeted by a number of scammers herself.
On one occasion, she received a phonecall from fraudsters pretending to be from Revenue, saying she'd overpaid her taxes:
She has this advice for anyone who gets a call looking for personal information:
A clinic to raise awareness of the dangers of fraud is coming to Westmeath.
Ms. O'Rourke is helping to promote the FraudSMART clinic, which takes place in the Radisson Blu hotel in Athlone on October 7th.
She says there's no end to the ways fraudsters try to manipulate people:
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