Not upheld: scam - refund of payments and application of CRM Code complaint against Santander UK Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Mr B lost £20,000 to a betting syndicate investment scam across three payments in 2018-2019. The scheme was shut down by authorities in 2021 and identified as fraudulent. Mr B reported the scam to Santander in July 2025 and complained to FOS in February 2026. Santander refunded only the third payment (£5,000) under the CRM Code, which only applied to payments from 2019 onwards. The ombudsman found the complaint about the 2018 payments fell outside FOS jurisdiction due to time limits, as Mr B should have complained by 2024 (six years after events or three years after becoming aware of the scam in November 2021). For matters within jurisdiction, the ombudsman upheld Santander's position that the CRM Code was correctly applied and no further recovery was possible.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that complaints about Santander's handling of the 2018 payments fell outside FOS jurisdiction because they were brought more than six years after the events (2018) and more than three years after Mr B ought reasonably to have become aware he had cause to complain (November 2021, when authorities identified him as a victim and found misuse of funds). For the 2025 matters within jurisdiction, Santander correctly applied the CRM Code (which only covered the third payment from 2019 onwards) and had already refunded that payment with interest. No further recovery was possible as the scheme had long since moved funds and authorities had frozen assets. The £100 compensation for customer service issues was deemed fair.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website