A credit card holder on a trip to Brussels visited a number of nightclubs, at one of which €7,750 was debited from his card.

One item was for €250 and was not disputed by the customer. The other transactions were for €2,500 each and were recorded as happening at 4.40am, 5.11am and 5.32am. The bank responded to a complaint by refunding €2,000 of the total because the customer's credit limit was exceeded by that amount.

It refused to refund the entire amount and the customer complained to the ombudsman.

Mr Meade said he couldn't see how the bank could be held responsible for the entire cost of the rip-off but said its security system should have done better. He directed the bank to pay a further €2,500 in compensation.