Fianna Fáil’s Health spokesperson Stephen Donnelly, has warned people against phoning a 1590 phone number to get through to the Revenue Commissioners.
Deputy Donnelly was speaking after the Chairman of the Revenue Commission, Niall Cody, appered in front of the Public Accounts Committee in Leinster House this week where he was urged by Fianna Fáil to take steps to stop people from being conned by a scamming connection service.
Deputy Donnelly said, “This 1590 number is run by a company in the UK and people who call it will be charged €30 for a ten minute phone call – this is outrageous and is completely taking advantage of people.
“If you search for a phone contact number for Revenue on google you will likely see a 1590 number. This is usually very high up, if not at the top, of a google search.
“Fianna Fáil asked the Chairman of the Revenue Commission to work with his European counterparts and contact Google to ensure that they keep the correct Revenue phone number to the top of a google search.
“We’ve also urged him to introduce a system that means when a person phones Revenue through the connection service, they are told immediately on speaking to a Revenue representative that they have been connected through a third party which charges excessive amounts, and they should be given the direct phone line number and asked to hang up and call back on that number.
“More needs to be done to protect consumers from highly experienced and sophisticated scammers”, concluded Donnelly.
