A bank worker who was given access to wealthy customers is facing jail after hatching a plot to defraud nearly £300,000 from their accounts.
Bryan Mearns, 43, was working with global giant HSBC and dealt with phone inquiries and had access to clients’ personal details.
Over the course of a year seven customers reported suspicious transactions or attempted transactions on their accounts.
An investigation was launched and it was discovered Mearns had dealt all of them in his post as an HSBC Premier account handler.
It emerged he had managed to get clients to divulge personal details to him over the phone and made extensive electronic investigations into their accounts.
Mearns, of Aberdeen, then engineered bogus phone calls to be made to the bank by different people, including himself, requesting substantial sums be transferred.
He even tried to disguise his voice by faking an accent to fool an operator into transferring £50,000.
But every transaction was stopped after being caught by the bank’s security system.
Mearns was sacked after failing to attend a disciplinary hearing and the police were contacted.
He appeared at Hamilton Sheriff Court and admitted fraudulently transferring £295,842.21 from HSBC between November 2010 and December 2011.
Depute fiscal Callum Forsyth said: “Seven high net worth clients of HSBC reported transactions or attempted transfers of funds which were fraudulent.
“An internal investigation was commenced by HSBC which involved listening to recorded customer service calls relevant to the affected accounts.
“It transpired that all of the affected clients had dealt with the accused by telephone.
“It transpired that he kept notes of personal banking information related to several of the affected clients, which HSBC confirm is not in keeping with business practices.
“It also transpired that the accused, identified by his user number, had made numerous electronic checks into their personal details and accounts, without any apparent business justification.”
Mearns’s agent, solicitor Ian Brechany, said: “There was no successful attempts here so not so much as a single penny reached him.
“The holy grail figure for him was £10,000 but at no stage did that ever happen hence why he kept trying and there were a significant amount of attempts.”
Sheriff Thomas Millar deferred sentence for reports and released Mearns on bail.
