Not upheld: fraud and scam - fake job opportunity scam; refusal to refund under Fraud Refund Guarantee complaint against TSB Bank plc

Decision detail

Summary

Ms P was scammed by someone posing as an employee of company B who convinced her to complete online tasks and make periodic 'top-up' payments, ultimately losing over £40,000 in 2024-2025. She requested TSB refund the payments, arguing TSB should have prevented the scam. The ombudsman found that while TSB should have intervened on unusually large payments, such intervention would not have stopped the scam because Ms P gave inaccurate answers to other providers' questions and never disclosed the job opportunity nature of the payments. Additionally, Ms P was excluded from TSB's Fraud Refund Guarantee because she continued sending funds after reporting the fraud to Action Fraud in July 2024 and after being warned by another provider. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

While the ombudsman found TSB should have intervened on unusually large payments, such intervention would not have prevented the scam because Ms P provided inaccurate answers to other providers' questions and never disclosed the job opportunity nature of the payments. This prevented TSB from providing relevant warnings. Additionally, Ms P is excluded from the Fraud Refund Guarantee because she continued sending funds after reporting to Action Fraud in July 2024 and after being warned by another provider that she was likely being scammed, which constitutes deliberately ignoring account safety information.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website