The Bank of Ireland’s fraud prevention team received over 10,000 calls from its customers from 23 December to 29 December and took more than 550 calls on Christmas day alone.

The bank said that the busiest day for calls from customers was 23 December, when it received over 2,800 calls. The second busiest day was 27 December, when the bank took 1,734 calls.

Customers call the fraud team for a range of reasons, including when they have spotted a transaction they do not recognise, are contacted by a fraudster or they are worried they may have shared their confidential banking information as a result of one of these contacts.

According to its research, the Bank of Ireland said that three quarters of customers want to be able to speak directly with someone at their bank or financial service provider if they fall victim to fraud or are worried about a transaction.

The bank added that fraudsters are constantly evolving their tactics to defraud customers and recently alerted their customers to the rise of ‘Live chat’ scams where people are tricked into allowing fraudsters remote access to their computers and bank accounts.

Susan Russell, chief executive retail Ireland, Bank of Ireland said that fraudsters never take a break, meaning that round-the-clock help for fraud is necessary.

“As these figures show, customers aren’t just concerned about fraud during business hours,” she added. “They can spot something worrying, or be the victim of an attempted fraud, on any day of the year.

“When that happens, they can call us any time for fraud and security support.”

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