About Safe & Secure Ireland
Free, plain-English help to spot scams and stay safe in Ireland. Independent: we sell no alarms and fit nothing.
Who we are
Safe & Secure Ireland is run by David, in Dublin.
The site helps people in Ireland recognise and avoid scams, and stay safe at home, online and out and about. It has three parts: ScamWatch, our warnings about scams going around in Ireland; plain-English safety guides; and directories of Irish providers, such as alarm installers and training courses.
All our printables are free to print and share; community groups are welcome to photocopy them.
Free
Every guide and scam warning
No sign-up
No account, no email address
Independent
We sell no alarms and fit nothing
Ad-free warnings
No adverts or affiliate links on scam pages
What we are, and what we are not
We are
- Independent. We are not run or paid by any bank, security company or public body.
- Irish. Every page is written for a reader in Ireland, with Irish bodies and Irish law.
- Free, with nothing to sign up for.
We are not
- A security company. We sell no alarms and fit nothing.
- An official body. We are not An Garda Síochána, a bank or a regulator, and we cannot investigate your case or contact your bank for you.
- A news site. We cover scams that are going around now, not crime news.
- A source of legal, financial or medical advice.
If you have lost money or shared your bank details, call your bank straight away, then report it to An Garda Síochána. In an emergency, call 999 or 112. Emergency contacts
How we check facts
- Every fact on a ScamWatch page comes from a primary source: An Garda Síochána (garda.ie), the website of the organisation the scammers pretend to be, the Central Bank of Ireland, the CCPC, ComReg, FraudSMART and other official bodies. That includes what a body will or will not do, every phone number and every way to report.
- Each fact is checked against its source before the page is published. If we cannot find a source for something, we leave it out. If sources disagree, we say so.
- We do not copy other scam websites, and we never count one of our own pages as a source.
- ScamCheck’s full answer is written by an AI (Claude, run by Anthropic) from these same checked pages and a short list of official sources. It never says a message is genuine, it is labelled as AI under every answer, and it can be wrong: if in doubt, ring the body yourself.
- Our newer pages list their sources at the foot of the page, with links. We are going back through older pages to add theirs.
- Example messages and stories are labelled. One we wrote to show how a scam works is called an illustration. We only call something a real case when we can point to where it was reported.
Corrections
If you think something on the site is wrong or out of date, please tell us. Email [email protected] or use our contact form and choose “Report a mistake on the site”. Tell us the page and what you think is wrong. A link to a source helps.
We check it against the source. If we got it wrong, we fix the page and show the date it was updated.
How the site is paid for
- The site carries no adverts.
- Some product pages link to products on Amazon. Those links are Amazon Associates affiliate links: if you buy through one, we may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you, and the page says so near the top. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
- No affiliate link, advert or paid placement ever appears on ScamWatch warnings, emergency pages or safety guidance.
- Directory listings are free. Being listed, and where you appear in a list, are never for sale.
- We do not publish sponsored content. If that ever changes, it will be clearly labelled "Sponsored".
Our videos
We make short videos about scams for our YouTube channel and Facebook page, and for some ScamWatch pages.
Nora and the Chancer are made-up characters: Nora is a cartoon grandmother, and the Chancer is the fox who sends the scam messages. We animate them ourselves, with an AI narrator voice and AI-assisted artwork. Every fact in a video is checked by a person before the video is published.
Contact us
Email [email protected] or use our contact form. To tell us about a scam you have seen, use the Report a Scam form. Our privacy notice explains what happens to what you send.