Not upheld: Fraud reimbursement (APP scams) complaint against National Westminster Bank Public Limited Company

Decision detail

Summary

Mr A lost £23,461.89 in a scam between February and March 2025, believing he was participating in a legitimate task-based job. He made several payments from his NatWest account to other payment service providers, which he then transferred to scammers. When other payment service providers intervened, Mr A was coached by the scammers to provide false information and circumvent the warnings. NatWest did not intervene on any of the payments. The ombudsman found NatWest should have intervened but rejected the complaint because evidence demonstrated Mr A would have been similarly coached to circumvent any NatWest intervention, meaning the intervention would not have prevented the loss.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

While NatWest should have intervened prior to processing some payments as a matter of good industry practice, the ombudsman found that any intervention would not have prevented the loss. The evidence showed Mr A was actively coached by scammers during interventions from other payment service providers, selecting false payment reasons and providing scammer-directed responses. On balance, if NatWest had intervened, Mr A would likely have behaved similarly and shared the intervention questions with the scammer, such that the scam would not have been uncovered. The ombudsman rejected the argument that a direct phone call would have been more effective, finding that automated intervention was proportionate given the circumstances. Therefore, causation was not established between NatWest's failure to intervene and the loss.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website