#bank-fraud

#bank-fraud

"Furthermore, investigators believe Mr. Hou's cellular phone was used by an unknown individual (s) who impersonated him to communicate with family members," the sheriff's office said in a statement.

"Banks appear to be protecting themselves and their own reputations, rather than trying to remedy a situation."

"We want to warn people as we are seeing a particular spike in these phone scams at the moment. We have seen more than 20 fake phonelines so far in April, that's a significant increase on other months," Bank of Ireland head of fraud Nicola Sadlier, said.