Not upheld: scam / fraud - inadequate intervention on suspicious payment complaint against J.P. Morgan Europe Limited trading as Chase

Decision detail

Summary

Mr W lost £25,000 to an investment scam after seeing online advertisements for company B, making a payment from his newly opened Chase account to a cryptocurrency exchange in October 2023. Chase flagged the payment and spoke to Mr W for over seven minutes, providing warnings about cryptocurrency risks and asking if he had checked the FCA register, but did not ask probing questions about why he was investing or whether he had been contacted by anyone offering investment opportunities. Mr W complained to Chase in August 2025, over 21 months later. The ombudsman found Chase's intervention inadequate but concluded that better questioning would not have prevented the loss, as Mr W had repeatedly provided misleading responses to other firms and was under the scammer's influence, having already built a trusting relationship by the time of this payment.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

While Chase's intervention was inadequate and didn't go far enough in questioning Mr W about the transaction, the ombudsman was not satisfied that better intervention would have prevented the loss. Mr W had repeatedly provided misleading responses to other firms, saying he wasn't being advised by anyone and wasn't moving funds on, despite receiving multiple warnings about cryptocurrency investment scams. The payment was not made at an early stage of the scam but after the scammer had built a trusting relationship with Mr W. Given Mr W's pattern of providing false answers even when warned of the importance of honesty and that scammers would advise him to lie, the ombudsman concluded Chase would likely have been prevented from understanding the real position even with additional questioning.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website