Ireland is unusual among English-speaking countries: there is no national online fraud reporting portal and no national anti-scam hotline. The official route, in the government’s own words, is to contact your local Garda station and take screenshots of everything. Knowing that in advance saves an hour of looking for a form that does not exist.
Your bank, then the Garda station
Call your bank first, on a number you already have. Then report the crime at your local Garda station — the directory is at garda.ie, and 999 or 112 if it is an emergency. Stations accept reports in person; the email addresses in the directory are monitored only periodically during business hours, so a walk-in or a phone call is faster.
Serious and organised fraud is handled by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, but it has no public intake channel: cases reach it through the station where you reported.
Scam calls and texts: ComReg
The communications regulator takes reports of scam calls and texts on 01 804 9668, by email, or by texting the word COMREG to 51500 for a callback. Its advice line is open Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 20:00, and Saturday morning.
ComReg does not work individual cases; it works the network. It blocks spoofed numbers, maintains a protected-number list and a do-not-originate list, runs a registry for SMS sender IDs, and operates a voice firewall. That is the lever that actually reduces these calls, and reports are what aims it.
One myth it debunks directly: going ex-directory or joining an opt-out register will not stop scam calls, because the callers dial number ranges and note which ones answer.
Investment offers and unauthorised firms
Check any firm against the Central Bank’s registers at registers.centralbank.ie before you send money, and report an unauthorised firm through the Central Bank’s own form. It publishes warning notices — but it does not investigate individual consumer complaints, so this is a check-and-warn route rather than a redress one.
When the bank says no: the Ombudsman
If your bank refuses to refund you and you think it is wrong, the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman can make a decision that binds the provider, free of charge. There is one procedural gate that catches people out: you must exhaust the provider’s own complaints process first and have its Final Response Letter before the Ombudsman will take the case. Ask for that letter explicitly.
What FraudSMART is and is not
FraudSMART is the banking industry’s awareness campaign. It publishes good, current alerts about what is circulating in Ireland, and it is worth following. It takes no reports and recovers nothing. The consumer commission likewise does not handle individual complaints; it uses complaint data to spot market-wide problems.
What to have ready
Screenshots of every message, the number or address that contacted you, the amounts and dates, the account you paid, your bank’s transaction reference, and — for the Ombudsman — the provider’s Final Response Letter. The government advice repeats the screenshots point twice, which tells you how often reports arrive without them.
Why Ireland gets hit
Research commissioned by ComReg put the annual quantifiable harm from scam calls and texts at around 309 million euro, from roughly a thousand fraud cases a day. Its explanation for the volume is unglamorous: Ireland is English-speaking, so fraud operations aiming at the anglosphere include it by default.
Two things that follow
First, expect a second approach — ComReg warns that people who have been scammed are contacted again by someone offering to recover the money for a fee. Second, if the scam has a website, report it to the company hosting it and to the registrar that sold the domain. They can take it down in hours, which no Irish public body can.