Not upheld: Fraud reimbursement (APP scams) complaint against Starling Bank Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mr G fell victim to an investment scam after clicking on a social media advertisement and was convinced to make 44 payments totalling £6,705 to ICM Pay via Apple Pay between April 2024 and October 2025. He later realised the scam and requested Starling Bank refund his losses. Starling refused, explaining that chargebacks were not available under the scheme rules and that it had no reasonable grounds to intervene. The ombudsman upheld Starling's position, finding that the individual payment amounts were not unusually large, payments were not to high-risk payee types, and FCA warnings about ICM clones were insufficient to flag the payments as suspicious, therefore Starling had no obligation to prevent the scam.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Mr G was the victim of a cruel scam, Starling was not responsible for the loss. The starting point is that Mr G authorised the payments, albeit under the scammer's instruction. Although banks have a duty to protect against fraud, the individual payment amounts were not unusually large, payments were not to high-risk payee types (such as cryptocurrency exchanges), and the FCA warnings about ICM clones were insufficient to flag these payments as potential scams. The ombudsman concluded it would not be reasonable to expect Starling's systems to have rejected or flagged these payments, and therefore Starling did not miss an opportunity to prevent the scam.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website