Not upheld: authorised push payment (APP) scam / fraud claim - reimbursement complaint against Wise Payments Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mr A paid £2,853.24 via Wise to Mr B in February 2025 to purchase a gaming account. Mr A obtained access to the account and made additional in-app purchases. In July 2025, Mr A lost access after Mr B threatened to reclaim it, and the gaming platform confirmed it had returned the account to the original owner. Mr A claimed this was a scam and requested reimbursement from Wise, which refused. The ombudsman did not uphold the complaint, finding that the Faster Payments Scheme reimbursement rules do not apply to international payments and that there was insufficient evidence of criminal intent by Mr B, with alternative explanations such as a genuine dispute being equally plausible.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Mr A authorised the payments, the Faster Payments Scheme reimbursement rules do not apply as the payment was made to an international account rather than a UK account. More fundamentally, the ombudsman concluded there was insufficient evidence to establish that Mr B had criminal intent to defraud Mr A from the outset. The available evidence, including account usage patterns and Mr B's defence submissions, suggested alternative explanations such as a genuine dispute between the parties rather than premeditated fraud. The ombudsman noted that Mr A had been granted access to the account and made additional purchases, and that it was unclear whether Mr B or another party reclaimed the account.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website