A BANK worker who stole the identifies of customers who rang the Dunfermline call centre where he worked and used their personal security details to drain their accounts of almost £37,000 has been jailed.

Mark Abram, 38, who had a cocaine conviction and was borrowing money to give to a woman, siphoned savings from his unsuspecting victims after they made routine calls to the Lloyds Banking Group call centre where he worked.

Falkirk Sheriff Court heard that two clients had rung the centre to get their address details changed.

On February 13, 2017, Abram, a call centre adviser, took a call from the first victim, in relation to an ISA.

He did not make the requested address change but a few days later, phoned Lloyds himself, pretending to be the customer.

Providing the victim’s stolen security details, he asked for the full balance in the ISA, some £22,530, to be transferred into an account he had set up at the TSB in the name of a “Sean McGuinness”.

The customer discovered his account had been emptied when he contacted Lloyds again about three months later.

A second customer was also targeted after a routine call to the centre to change the address on a Halifax investor policy he held. Again, it was Abram who took the call and the requested change was not made. Instead, Abram transferred the customer’s full balance, £14,416, into an account in the name of “Sean McGuinness” he had opened fraudulently at the Nationwide.

Once again, the customer found out later that his money was missing.

An investigation showed Abram had taken calls from both the customers whose accounts he had emptied, and had not been in work on the days the calls were made to siphon off the money.

He was interviewed, suspended, resigned, and the police were called in.

It was discovered there was a “family link” between Abram and Mr McGuinness, who it turned out had died on May 27, 2017. Before he passed away, Mr McGuinness had “become aware” of somebody opening accounts in his name without his permission, the court heard.

The bogus accounts were frozen and all but £7,000 of the money was recovered.

Abram, of Craigmyle Street, Dunfermline, said to have a previous conviction for possession of cocaine in 2014, was charged with obtaining £36,946 by fraud.

Zander Flett, defending, said that, at the time of the scam, Abram had a “significant” amount of debt, partly as a result of him taking out loans on behalf of a former partner who could not obtain credit in her own right.

Jailing Abram for 16 months, Sheriff Alastair Brown said he had committed a “deliberate” breach of trust, breaching his employment contract in terms of the personal data of customers and stealing their identities.

He said: “For these two customers to discover that their savings, substantial amounts which I assume they had accumulated by hard graft and honest toil, perhaps over many years, had disappeared, was likely to be greatly distressing and productive of enormous anxiety.

“The serious nature of this offence makes it unquestionably a case for custody.”

The sheriff said it was “disappointing” that the case had taken more than two-and-a-half years to come to court, which he said was a result of police not giving the case priority.

Abram showed no emotion as he was led down to the cells.