Not upheld: scam prevention and recovery - romance scam with cryptocurrency complaint against Bank of Scotland plc trading as Halifax

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs D complained that Halifax failed to prevent her loss of over £35,000 in a romance scam involving cryptocurrency. She met a scammer on a dating website who persuaded her to open an online shop that was actually a scam platform. She made 13 payments from her Halifax account to a crypto exchange, which were then converted and sent to the scammers. Halifax intervened twice but Mrs D provided misleading answers about the purpose of the payments. The ombudsman found that Mrs D was completely under the scammer's influence and deliberately deceived both Halifax and her other provider to enable the payments, and that even with appropriate intervention Halifax could not have prevented the scam. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Halifax should monitor accounts and intervene in suspicious transactions, Mrs D was completely under the scammer's influence and deliberately provided misleading answers to both Halifax and her other provider to enable the payments. The scam chat messages showed she believed the scheme was legitimate. Even with appropriate intervention, Halifax could not have prevented the scam given her deceptive responses. Additionally, Halifax had no obligation to refund under the APP reimbursement scheme as the payments were to accounts held by the same account holder.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website