There has been a dramatic escalation in site takedowns, where a bank intervenes to request a fraudulent domain be removed, this year. Between January and May, the number of requests has been 1,500 times the number for the whole of last year, AIB has said.
The bank on Friday warned customers to exercise “extreme caution” with new data highlighting a “significant increase” in fraudulent investment advertisements and scam-related websites circulating online.
It comes as Minister for Finance, Simon Harris proposes a new type of savings investment account, with details expected in the budget, and as the European Union imposes new tax charges on online shopping – both events that are expected to drive a further increase in scam texts and emails.
AIB said the numbers highlighted the “rapid growth of this threat in 2026, as criminals increasingly exploit online and social media platforms to target consumers, with thousands of fake domains taken down following intervention by AIB”.
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“These advertisements often impersonate legitimate companies, media outlets, or individuals and politicians to build trust and encourage people to invest in opportunities that don’t exist,” the bank said. “Customers may only realise the purported investment is a scam 12 months or longer down the line, when their supposed investment was due to mature.”
AIB said fraudsters were increasingly leveraging sponsored and targeted advertisements on social media platforms; fake news articles and cloned websites; and AI-generated content and false endorsements.
AIB head of fraud intelligence, Harold Perez said the bank was seeing a “huge increase” in fake online advertisements promoting investment scams.
“Criminals are using sophisticated tactics, including social media advertising and cloned websites on legitimate search engines, to create increasingly convincing but entirely fraudulent opportunities,” he said.
“The scale of growth this year is particularly stark and demonstrates how quickly criminals are adapting their tactics... We would strongly encourage customers to take time to verify any investment opportunity and seek independent advice before transferring funds – if an investment opportunity seems too good to be true, it likely is.”
Perez said customers often only realise they have been targeted by a scam when they attempt to withdraw funds and encounter delays, excuses or are unable to access their supposed investment at all.
