Not upheld: Fraud reimbursement (APP scams) complaint against Barclays Bank UK PLC

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs H and Mr H lost £242,500 of their lifetime savings to investment and recovery scams between July and August 2025. They made payments from their Barclays account to an electronic money institution account, from which funds were transferred to scammers' cryptocurrency wallets. Barclays blocked most August payments and called Mrs H to discuss them, but she provided coherent cover stories about moving savings for better interest rates and funding a holiday. The ombudsman found that while Barclays could have probed further, Mrs H was so deeply under the scammer's spell that she would not have disclosed the scam regardless of intervention, had actively hidden the scams from family despite their warnings, and would have found alternative payment channels if Barclays had refused. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Barclays should have intervened more strongly on most August 2025 payments due to their unusual size and the preceding ISA withdrawal, such intervention would not have prevented the losses. Mrs H was deeply under the scammer's spell, consistently provided coherent and plausible cover stories, actively hid the scams from family and friends despite their warnings, and demonstrated a pattern of continuing to engage with scammers even after realising she was being scammed. The ombudsman concluded that Mrs H would have either been unable or unwilling to accept warnings from any source and would have found alternative payment channels if Barclays had blocked her account, as she did when other institutions refused payments.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website