Not upheld: scam/fraud - refund of payments made by victim complaint against HSBC UK Bank Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Miss W lost £12,609 to a job scam after responding to a social media advert and making multiple payments between 2-7 November 2025. HSBC refunded the first three payments and 50% of the last three, but refused to refund the remaining payments. The ombudsman found that while HSBC should have intervened by the seventh payment due to the pattern of large payments to the same payee within 24 hours, intervention would not have prevented the loss because Miss W was actively deceiving banks on the scammer's instructions and ignored fraud warnings from another bank. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

While HSBC should have identified the heightened fraud risk by the seventh payment and intervened with probing questions, the ombudsman found that Miss W would likely have continued following the scammer's instructions regardless. Evidence showed that when another bank intervened with warnings, Miss W answered dishonestly (following the scammer's instructions) and proceeded with the payments anyway. Therefore, even if HSBC had intervened, it would not have prevented the loss because Miss W was actively deceiving banks on the scammer's instructions and ignoring fraud warnings.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website