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

Decision detail

Summary

Mr S complained that Starling Bank Limited failed to reimburse £1,012.11 he lost to an impersonation scam after responding to a phishing email. The payments were made using his debit card to a legitimate merchant. Starling's investigator did not uphold the complaint, finding the payments were not suspicious enough to warrant intervention and that chargeback recovery was unlikely. The ombudsman agreed, finding no concerning patterns in the payments and confirming that once released, Mastercard payments cannot be reversed. Although sympathising with Mr S's loss, the ombudsman found no failings by Starling and did not uphold the complaint.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found no concerning factors or patterns indicative of a scam in the way the payments were made. The individual transactions and their sum were not of significant enough value to warrant intervention in the context of the vast number of payments Starling receives. As the payments were made to a legitimate merchant using a guaranteed payment method (Mastercard), there were no realistic prospects of successful recovery through chargeback. The ombudsman noted that while agents could have been clearer that a scam claim could not guarantee a refund, this did not constitute a failing that would warrant upholding the complaint.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website