The Irish Payments Services Organisation (Ipso) has issued a warning about fraudulent emails.
Ipso said a considerable number of people have received an email purporting to be from their Laser card services department, advising customers that their Laser card account has been temporarily suspended.
The email appears to come from the genuine Laser card services email address and offers the customer the chance to unlock their account by completing details in an attached "unlock form".
Ipso have warned customers that the email does not emanate from Laser card services.
It is part of an illegal scam, known as phishing, which is created to dupe cardholders into providing their account details to criminals who then use the details to access the customers’ accounts. Ipso warned that Laser Card Services would never ask customers to disclose personal account information.
Ipso advises cardholders never to respond to emails from an unknown source and to avoid clicking on web links or attachments contained within such emails.
A recent report on internet security from Symantec, makers of Norton antivirus software, highlighted that there were 5.5 billion malicious attacks online in 2011, an increase of 81 per cent on the previous year.
The same report also showed that one in every 298 emails is a phishing attack seeking information such as passwords or usernames, and one in every 239 is affected by viruses.
Ipso is currently seeking to shut down this particular phishing incident and would encourage consumers to beware of similar scams sent through email, text or by phone.