Not upheld: Authorised Push Payment (APP) scam - refund claim / civil dispute classification complaint against Santander UK Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Ms W paid over £35,000 to a landscaping company (G) between June and July 2025 for garden work. Only 30-40% of the work was completed, key materials were not ordered, and workers ceased work due to unpaid wages. Ms W claimed this was an Authorised Push Payment scam and sought reimbursement from Santander. The ombudsman found that while Ms W had legitimate concerns about G's business practices (including invalid VAT numbers and suspicious company naming), the evidence did not establish that G intended to defraud her from the outset. Since Ms W paid the intended recipient for the stated purpose and some work was performed, the ombudsman classified this as a civil dispute rather than an APP scam, and therefore Santander was not liable to reimburse her under the Reimbursement Rules.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman applied the Reimbursement Rules definition of an APP scam, which requires either that the recipient is not who the consumer intended to pay, or the payment is not for the purpose the consumer intended. The ombudsman found that Ms W sent payments to G's account details as intended, and that some work was actually carried out, indicating the payments were made for the stated purpose of landscaping work. While acknowledging poor business practices (invalid VAT numbers, company name similarities), the ombudsman concluded these did not demonstrate that G's intent from the outset was to defraud Ms W. The high threshold for establishing fraud on the balance of probabilities was not met, as the evidence could equally support alternative explanations such as poor business practices, incompetence, or changed circumstances rather than deliberate fraud.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website