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

Decision detail

Summary

Ms C complained that Lloyds Bank PLC should refund payments she made after being added to a group chat about an investment opportunity. She made multiple payments to a cryptocurrency exchange believing they would fund an investment, but the investment company proved to be a scam and she could not recover her funds. Lloyds refused to refund the payments, and Ms C referred the complaint to the FOS. The ombudsman did not uphold the complaint because Ms C could not provide sufficient evidence linking the payments to the investment company or demonstrating she had suffered a loss, despite being given multiple opportunities to provide documentation.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman determined that before considering whether a bank protected its customers adequately, the service must first establish that a customer was the victim of a scam and suffered a loss. Despite multiple requests for evidence, Ms C failed to provide sufficient documentation linking the payments to the investment company, showing how funds would be credited, or demonstrating a clear connection between the cryptocurrency exchange payments and the investment company. The account screenshots provided did not show any payments and the balance did not match the complained-about payments. The lack of clear evidence regarding what the payments were for and whether a loss was actually suffered meant the ombudsman could not safely conclude a scam had occurred.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website