CALLS have been made demanding the Royal Bank of Scotland reopen its branch in West Kilbride town centre following a recent spate of attempted frauds.

We recently reported how award-winning businesswoman Linda Hill, pictured, was only seconds away from having her account emptied of over £50,000, while local businessman David Lyle almost lost £8,000 in a copycat con.

Linda became suspicious due to the 'watery language' being used by the scam caller and said her confidence was only restored by going to the Royal Bank of Scotland in Largs to speak to someone face-to-face.

The West Kilbride branch closed down in October 2015, replaced by a mobile bank which only occasionally visits the town.

Linda says it is time for the RBS and other banks to halt closures and look at bringing back banks to town centres in a bid to prevent fraud.

Her view was echoed by her Lesley Richardson, who said: "Sadly our 'local' branch is now about 10 miles away. Before we could have crossed the road to check if a call was legitimate, but sadly not now."

A Royal Bank of Scotland spokesperson said: “While we acknowledge a number of our branches have closed in recent years, our customer service team and fraud teams are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year should a customer need to speak with us.

"Keeping our customers safe and secure is of paramount importance to us. We remind all of our customers to be vigilant against any type of scam especially when receiving calls or text messages from phone numbers appearing to come from their bank.

"We will never ask our customers to move money to another account to keep it safe from scams or fraud and they should never make a payment or divulge full security credentials at the request of someone over the phone purporting to be from their bank.

"If a customer receives such a request, they should decline this and report it to their bank immediately on a phone number they can trust.”

The bank says they are aware of the latest scam of 'phone number spoofing' which is a method by which fraudsters can make a call or text message appear as though it is coming from the bank’s actual phone number.

The spokesperson added: "This is an inherent weakness of the phone system, impacting banks amongst others, and one which the UK telecoms providers are working with the industry to resolve.

"More information on how our customers can keep themselves safe and secure can be found on our website’s security centre."