Not upheld: fraud prevention and scam protection - refund request complaint against Santander UK Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Ms S fell victim to a task-based scam where she was led to believe she was completing tasks for commission. Between late December 2024 and early January 2025, she made multiple payments totalling £16,748 to a cryptocurrency exchange account in her name, which were subsequently transferred to scammers. Santander intervened on at least two occasions and provided cryptocurrency investment scam warnings, but Ms S stated she was investing for returns and proceeded with the payments. The ombudsman found that Santander's interventions were appropriate and that the bank had no realistic prospect of uncovering the scam given Ms S's coached responses, and therefore did not uphold her complaint for a refund.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Santander has a duty to make payments as instructed, it may conduct fraud checks in appropriate circumstances. The first five payments were not sufficiently unusual given Ms S's spending history. For the larger sixth payment of £1,700 and subsequent payments of £4,700 and £9,000, Santander did intervene and provided tailored cryptocurrency investment scam warnings based on Ms S's stated reasons. Ms S maintained her position that she was investing in cryptocurrency and proceeded with the payments regardless. The ombudsman concluded that Ms S had been coached to present the payments as legitimate and would not have revealed the scam even with more probing questions. Santander had no realistic prospect of uncovering the task-based scam given the information available to it and Ms S's responses.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website