Not upheld: inadequate fraud prevention and scam protection complaint against Santander UK Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Mr O lost £7,854.34 to a sophisticated job scam involving payments made through a messaging app contact. He complained that Santander should have intervened to prevent the payments as they were out of character and made to a cryptocurrency-related entity. The ombudsman found that the payment pattern (with breaks of 3, 9, and 4 days between transactions) and individual values were not unusual enough to require Santander to intervene, given Mr O's account history of regular payments of hundreds of pounds. The complaint was not upheld, and no remedy was ordered.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman assessed whether the payment pattern and values were sufficiently unusual to require Santander to intervene. While acknowledging Mr O was a scam victim, the analysis found: (1) the initial payments were not unusual in value given Mr O's account history of regular payments of hundreds of pounds; (2) the payment pattern did not show rapid consecutive payments indicating pressure; (3) the breaks between payments (3 days, 9 days, 4 days) did not indicate heightened risk; (4) the escalation and combined values were not at a level requiring intervention. The ombudsman noted that CRM code did not apply as payments were by debit card to an account in Mr O's name, and chargeback would have been outside the timeframe.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website