Not upheld: unauthorised transactions / fraud claim complaint against Barclays Bank UK PLC

Decision detail

Summary

Mr S complained that Barclays refused to refund £8,500 in unauthorised transactions sent to a money remittance service (R) and subsequently to Pakistan. Mr S claimed his phone was lost during a taxi ride on 22 December 2024 and used fraudulently to make the payments. Barclays refused the refund, arguing they could not find evidence of fraud. The ombudsman found the complaint not upheld, determining that the timeline was inconsistent with Mr S's loss of phone claim, as the transactions occurred between 2am-3am but the taxi ride did not start until 3:30am. The ombudsman also found it implausible that a fraudster could authenticate payments through multiple security layers without Mr S's knowledge.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while the transactions were authenticated on Mr S's device, the Payment Service Regulations 2017 require Barclays to show on balance that Mr S authorised the payments. The critical issue was the timeline: the disputed transactions occurred between 2am-3am, but Mr S's taxi ride (when he claims to have lost his phone) did not start until 3:30am. This timeline inconsistency meant the loss of the phone could not have led to the fraudulent transactions. Additionally, even if the phone had been lost earlier, a fraudster would need to bypass multiple security layers (biometrics/passcode on phone, passcodes for banking app and R account), which the ombudsman found unlikely. The ombudsman also rejected Mr S's argument that payments went to a different R account, finding evidence that they went to Mr S's own R account before being transferred to Pakistan.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website