The short answer
Ireland's routes in 2026: report the crime in person at your local Garda station (112 or 999 in an emergency), with serious cases forwarded to the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB); use FraudSMART (fraudsmart.ie) for live scam alerts; check and report investment fraud through the Central Bank of Ireland's list of unauthorised firms; report scam calls and texts to ComReg; get consumer advice from the CCPC; escalate a bank's refusal to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO); and get free support from the Crime Victims Helpline on 116 006. Crucially, under the EU Payment Services Directive your bank must refund an unauthorised payment and your liability is capped at €50 — but money you transferred yourself under deception is generally not refundable, because Ireland has no UK-style mandatory-reimbursement rule.
If you have been scammed in Ireland, two things matter most in the first 24 hours: stopping any further loss and creating a record while the evidence still exists. Everything downstream — which body, which form, which refund argument — depends on getting those two right. The complication is that Ireland, unlike the UK, has no single place to report and no automatic refund to fall back on, so the order below is built to be the fastest path through a system with several separate doors.
If you are reading this with a transaction you already regret, skip to if money has already moved. A same-day bank recall is sometimes the only thing that works.
The hard truth first: Ireland refunds the hack, not the con
This matters most, because it sets your expectations correctly before you spend a week chasing the wrong outcome.
Irish law draws a sharp line between two kinds of loss, through the EU Payment Services Directive. If a payment was unauthorised — someone used your card or got into your account without permission — your bank must refund it, and your own liability is generally capped at €50 unless you were grossly negligent. That part works reasonably well.
But if you authorised the payment yourself because you were deceived — you logged in and sent the transfer because a convincing "bank official" or "investment adviser" told you to — that is legally a valid instruction, and the refund right does not apply. There is no Irish equivalent of the UK rule that forces banks to reimburse this kind of authorised-push-payment fraud.
You do not have to take my word for the gap — the Oireachtas did. In October 2024 a finance committee recommended that Ireland introduce a mandatory reimbursement scheme for authorised-push-payment fraud. A recommendation to create something is the clearest possible proof it does not yet exist. Britain already has exactly that: the Payment Systems Regulator now
requires banks to refund deception-based transfers up to £85,000, as we covered in
the UK reporting guide. Ireland has no such rule, and as of 2026 the EU-wide PSD3/PSR reform that might narrow the gap is still only provisional. So in Ireland the realistic recovery levers for a deception transfer are speed (a same-day bank recall), the FSPO for a wrongly-refused unauthorised claim, or a civil claim — not an automatic refund.
There is no single front door — you start at your local Garda station
This is the detail that catches people out. Ireland has no national online fraud-reporting portal of the kind the US (IC3) or the UK (Report Fraud) run. The criminal report is made the old-fashioned way, in person.
—The criminal report — in person at any Garda station. This is the report that can open an investigation. Go to your local station; in an emergency, or if money is moving now, call 112 or 999. Cases deemed serious or complex are forwarded to the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB), the specialist fraud unit.
—The awareness service — FraudSMART. Run by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland, fraudsmart.ie publishes alerts on the live text, email and investment scams circulating in Ireland. It is where to check what is going around, and the Gardaí and FraudSMART regularly issue joint warnings — but it is not itself a criminal report.
—Scam calls and texts — ComReg. The communications regulator works with phone operators to block fraudulent numbers. Report a scam call or text to it so the number can be investigated.
—Keep the case reference. Whatever channel you use, note any reference number you are given — your bank or the ombudsman may ask for it.
The full Irish reporting directory, by scam type
Different scams route to different specialists. Using the right one matters more than reporting to all of them.
—Any fraud where you lost money. Report it in person at your local Garda station (112 or 999 in an emergency), and tell your bank the same hour. The Garda report is the criminal-side foundation; serious cases reach the GNECB.
—A fake online shop, phishing email, or scam text. Tell your bank if a message impersonated it, check FraudSMART for the live campaign, and report a scam call or text to ComReg. File the Garda report if you lost money.
—Investment, crypto, or fake-broker fraud. Search the Central Bank of Ireland's list of unauthorised firms before investing, and report an unlicensed provider. The Central Bank cannot recover funds, but a warning notice flags the operation publicly.
—A consumer or contract dispute. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) advises on consumer rights and where a purchase or trader dispute should go.
—A bank or financial firm that mishandled your case. The Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO) investigates complaints between consumers and financial firms for free, including a refund a bank wrongly refused.
—Misuse of your personal data. The Data Protection Commission (DPC) handles data-protection complaints. File the Garda report too if the data was used to defraud you.
—A scam you spotted but did not fall for. Still report it — to FraudSMART, to ComReg for a scam call or text, to the Central Bank for a fake investment offer. No-loss reports still build the picture that targets the operators.
—You need a human to talk to. The Crime Victims Helpline on freephone 116 006 (or text 085 133 7711) — confidential, free, trained volunteers who can explain the process and connect you to support.
If money has already moved — the first 24 hours
Speed is the whole game, especially in Ireland where there is no automatic refund to fall back on for a transfer you authorised. This is the maximum-recovery order:
1Call your bank's 24/7 fraud line and freeze the card if your card or online banking may be compromised. If the transaction was unauthorised (you did not make it), say clearly you are disputing it, ask the bank to attempt a recall, and get a reference in writing.
2Report the crime in person at your local Garda station. In an emergency, 112 or 999. You will be given a reference — keep it. Serious and complex cases are forwarded to the GNECB.
3Document everything in one place. Screenshot the conversation, the scammer's numbers, emails and fake websites, and the transaction details (date, time, amount, recipient name and IBAN). Save it as a single PDF before the accounts vanish.
4Check FraudSMART for the live scam, and report a fraudulent call or text to ComReg. Tell your bank's fraud team if a message impersonated it. 6Block the scammer everywhere and stop engaging. Any "recovery" offer that follows — a solicitor, an agency, someone claiming to be the Gardaí, the Central Bank or your bank — is the second scam. We covered the pattern in the recovery-scams piece. 7If the bank wrongly refuses to refund an unauthorised payment, escalate free of charge to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO). For a deception-based transfer you authorised, a fast recall or a civil claim are the realistic routes — there is no automatic reimbursement.
8Call the Crime Victims Helpline on 116 006 for free, confidential support. A good first human call if the process feels overwhelming.
Within days of any public post or report about your loss, "recovery scammers" will find you. They will pose as a solicitor, a "fund-recovery" specialist, or even the Gardaí, the Central Bank or your bank, and ask for an upfront fee or your banking details. Real Irish channels — your bank, the Gardaí, the Central Bank, the FSPO, the Crime Victims Helpline — never charge upfront to recover money, and authorities never cold-call demanding payment. See
the recovery-scams piece for the full pattern.
The Irish numbers — and why they jumped in 2024
The Central Bank of Ireland's payment-fraud statistics for 2024 are the most recent national picture, and they moved sharply. The headline figures, all from named sources:
—Fraudulent payments totalled €160 million in 2024 — up nearly 25% by value. The Central Bank of Ireland's annual payment-fraud figures; the increase was driven by a steep rise across several categories.
—The volume of fraudulent payments rose 40% in a single year. Not just bigger losses — far more fraudulent transactions, a sign of how industrialised the activity has become.
—E-money fraud jumped from €3.3 million to €25.6 million. An almost eightfold rise year on year, the sharpest single shift in the Central Bank's breakdown.
—Fraudulent remittances more than doubled, from €8.2 million to €20.4 million. Authorised-push-payment-style transfers are a growing slice — exactly the category Irish banks are not obliged to refund.
—Investment-fraud losses reached nearly €31 million in 2024. More than double the €14 million of 2021, according to FraudSMART/BPFI. Irish SMEs separately lost over €17 million to email-based scams across two years, and over €44 million has been laundered through money-mule accounts in three years to mid-2024.
The habits that keep you out of the reporting machinery entirely
Reporting is downstream. Prevention is upstream, and three habits stop most Irish scams cold:
—Never move money or share a code because of a call or text you did not initiate. Real banks, the real Gardaí, and the Revenue Commissioners never phone or text to demand an urgent transfer to a 'safe account' or a one-time code to 'secure' your money. Hang up and call the institution back on the number printed on your card or its official site.
—Treat the fake-bank, fake-Revenue and fake-Garda scripts as automatic red flags. A caller claiming to be your bank's fraud team, Revenue, or An Garda Síochána, pressuring you to move money or hand over codes, is running a known script. The same voice-and-pressure playbook drives the shock-call and family-imposter scams covered in the family-impersonation piece. —Treat any money conversation that moves onto a messaging app as hostile until verified. Investment 'advisers', recruiters, and romance contacts in Ireland overwhelmingly pivot to WhatsApp. The AI-generated celebrity and 'state-backed' investment ads FraudSMART keeps warning about all funnel to a private chat — the move off a verifiable platform is the single most reliable scam signal.
If you are unsure whether something is a scam before any money moves, the fastest second opinion is the Scam Checker on this site, or our free case review. Both are read by a human and answered within 24 hours.
From the field. The Irish pattern we see most in 2026 is the AI-dressed investment ad — a familiar Irish face, a "state-backed" scheme, a WhatsApp group — and the fake-delivery An Post text. But the most damaging cases are still the bank-impersonation call: an older person is told their account is compromised and is walked, urgently, into authorising a transfer themselves. Because the victim enters the instruction, the bank treats it as authorised and the refund right does not apply. That legal reality — and the fact Ireland's own parliament had to ask for a reimbursement rule in 2024 — is precisely why the prevention rule below matters more than the entire reporting machinery downstream of it.
One rule, end to end
If you take one habit from this piece, take this: any unsolicited call, text, or email that pressures you to move money or share a code is a scam until you have hung up and verified it by calling the institution back on a number you already trust. In a country with no automatic refund for a transfer you authorised, that one pause is worth more than the entire reporting machinery downstream of it.
In Ireland and not sure where to start? Let's look at it together.
Describe the message, the call, the transaction. A real expert reviews every case and replies within 24 hours. Free, confidential, no pressure.
Common questions about reporting a scam in Ireland
Is there one place to report all scams in Ireland?
No. Ireland has no single national fraud-reporting portal. The primary route is to report the crime in person at your local Garda station — that is the report that can open an investigation. In an emergency, or while money is still moving, call 112 or 999. Serious and complex cases are forwarded to the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB). On top of the criminal report you can warn others and get advice through FraudSMART, the fraud-awareness service of Banking & Payments Federation Ireland, check an investment firm against the Central Bank of Ireland's list of unauthorised firms, and report scam calls and texts to ComReg. The practical order: tell your bank, file the Garda report, then add the specialist body that matches the scam.
Will my Irish bank refund money I lost to a scam?
It depends on one distinction. Ireland follows the EU Payment Services Directive. If the payment was unauthorised — someone used your card or got into your account without permission — your bank must refund it, and your own liability is generally capped at €50 unless you were grossly negligent. But if you authorised the payment yourself because you were deceived, that counts as a valid instruction, and Ireland has no equivalent of the UK rule forcing banks to reimburse this kind of authorised-push-payment fraud. An Oireachtas finance committee recommended creating one in October 2024 — which tells you it does not yet exist. So Irish banks refund the hack, not the con. Report it fast anyway: speed is what gives a same-day recall any chance.
How do I report a fake online shop or phishing message in Ireland?
Report the crime to your local Garda station, and if a message impersonated your bank, tell the bank immediately so it can watch the account and attempt a recall. FraudSMART (fraudsmart.ie), run by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland, publishes alerts on the live text, email and investment scams circulating in Ireland and is worth checking. Scam phone calls and text messages can also be reported to ComReg, the communications regulator, which works with operators to block fraudulent numbers. If you simply spotted a scam without losing money, reporting it still feeds the national picture.
How do I check whether an investment platform is legitimate in Ireland?
Use the Central Bank of Ireland. Before sending money, search its list of unauthorised firms — companies it has published warning notices about — and confirm the firm is authorised to provide financial services in Ireland. The Central Bank cannot recover your money, but its warnings are how a large share of fake-broker, cloned-firm and bogus crypto-platform operations get publicly flagged. Investment fraud is one of the fastest-growing categories in Ireland, with losses of nearly €31 million in 2024 — more than double 2021 — and the dominant pattern is AI-generated celebrity or 'state-backed' investment ads that pivot the conversation onto WhatsApp.
Where can a scam victim get free human help in Ireland?
Call the Crime Victims Helpline on freephone 116 006 (you can also text 085 133 7711). It is a confidential national service staffed by trained volunteers who can explain the justice process and connect you to local and specialist support. For a dispute your bank or a financial firm refuses to resolve, the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO) can investigate for free, and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) advises on consumer rights. None of these will ever charge an upfront fee to 'recover' your money — anyone who does is running the second scam.
Sources & further reading
Every figure in this piece is drawn from these authorities. Click any of them to verify.