Not upheld: scam - inadequate fraud prevention measures and failure to intervene complaint against Barclays Bank UK PLC

Decision detail

Summary

Mr A lost approximately £25,000 to a task-based job scam between November and December 2024, making 13 payments from his Barclays account. He complained that Barclays failed to protect him from the scam through inadequate fraud prevention measures. While the ombudsman acknowledged that Barclays should have intervened before processing certain payments and that their fraud prevention questioning could have been more thorough, the complaint was not upheld. The ombudsman found that even with more robust intervention, the scam would not have been prevented because Mr A was heavily influenced by the scammer to provide misleading information to multiple banks and to ignore specific fraud warnings from another provider (X). The ombudsman concluded that causation could not be established—that is, Barclays' failure to intervene would not have prevented the loss given Mr A's demonstrated susceptibility to the scammer's influence and his pattern of providing false information across multiple financial institutions.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman applied a two-part test: (1) whether Barclays should have intervened, and (2) whether such intervention would have prevented the loss (causation). While finding that Barclays should have intervened before the seventh payment and that their questioning could have gone further, the ombudsman concluded that proportionate intervention would not have uncovered the scam. This conclusion was based on: Mr A's demonstrated willingness to provide misleading information to multiple banks (Barclays, M, and X); his demonstrated tendency to ignore specific, relevant fraud warnings from X despite X explicitly warning him it was likely a job scam; the significant influence the scammer had over him; and his own testimony that he could not see clearly or make rational judgments due to the scammer's manipulation. The ombudsman found that even if Barclays had intervened more robustly, Mr A would likely have continued to mislead them and ignored warnings, just as he did with X.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website