Not upheld: scam reimbursement and fraud prevention complaint against Rightcard Payment Services Limited trading as Lemfi

Decision detail

Summary

Miss N complained that Lemfi refused to reimburse £2,721 she lost to a scam involving fraudulent job opportunity payments made in August 2025. The ombudsman found that while payment service providers must prevent sufficiently unusual payments, these transactions were not unusual enough in the context of Lemfi's overall payment volume to warrant intervention. Although Miss N was in a vulnerable financial position and had borrowed money, Lemfi were unaware of her circumstances and the payments lacked typical scam indicators. The complaint was not upheld as Lemfi could not be fairly held responsible, particularly since funds had already been removed by scammers before the fraud was reported in October 2025.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

While Lemfi should take steps to identify and prevent sufficiently unusual or uncharacteristic payments, the individual transactions and their sum were not of such significant value in the context of the vast number of payment instructions Lemfi receives to warrant intervention. The payments did not bear hallmarks typical of scams that would have indicated fraud to Lemfi. Although Miss N was in a vulnerable financial position, Lemfi were unaware of her circumstances and the payments were not unusual enough to raise suspicions. Additionally, by the time the scam was reported in October 2025, the funds had already been removed by scammers, making recovery impossible.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website