Not upheld: Fraud reimbursement (APP scams) complaint against Handelsbanken plc

Decision detail

Summary

Mr J lost £4,271.75 to an investment scam after seeing a pop-up advertisement and making four card payments to what he believed was a legitimate investment opportunity. Handelsbanken initially provided temporary reimbursement but after four months determined it was not liable and re-debited the account. The ombudsman found that while Handelsbanken should monitor for fraud, the payments were not sufficiently out of character to require intervention, and the chargeback process was handled appropriately with no reasonable prospects of success. However, the ombudsman upheld a complaint about the unreasonable four-month delay in Handelsbanken's decision, awarding £150 compensation. The overall complaint for reimbursement of losses was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Handelsbanken should monitor accounts for fraud, it must balance this against processing thousands of genuine payments daily. The scam payments were not sufficiently out of character to require intervention: the payment values were within Mr J's historical spending patterns, and although three payments were made in one day, this was not concerning enough given the payments appeared to go to a genuine merchant and were made from Mr J's usual location. The ombudsman concluded the chargeback process was handled fairly and had no reasonable prospects of success because Mr J authenticated the payments and a service was provided (albeit to a third party). However, the four-month delay in Handelsbanken's decision was unreasonable.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website