Not upheld: Failure to intervene on APP scam payment; inadequate fraud prevention measures complaint against Monzo Bank Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mr A was victim of a romance investment scam where he was deceived into making cryptocurrency payments totalling £4,800 (plus attempted £10,000) to his own account at a cryptocurrency provider, which were then converted and sent to scammers. Monzo failed to provide a proportionate written warning on the initial £4,800 payment despite identifying it as going to a cryptocurrency provider with identifiable fraud risk. However, the ombudsman found that even with such a warning, Mr A would likely have proceeded given his belief in the genuine relationship with the scammer. The complaint was not upheld as the ombudsman could not be satisfied that Monzo's intervention would have prevented the loss, despite acknowledging Monzo's failings in fraud prevention.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

While Monzo failed to provide a proportionate tailored written warning on the £4,800 payment to a cryptocurrency provider (which it should have done), the ombudsman found this failure did not cause Mr A's loss. The key finding was that on balance of probabilities, Mr A would not have heeded such a warning given his strong belief in the genuine relationship with the scammer and his trust in her as an experienced trader. This conclusion was supported by Mr A's behaviour when Monzo did intervene on the £10,000 payment - despite receiving verbal warnings about cryptocurrency investment scams during that call, Mr A proceeded to make a £1,000 payment from another account, demonstrating his commitment to the fraudulent scheme regardless of warnings.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website