Not upheld: Fraud reimbursement (APP scams) complaint against Barclays Bank UK Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Ms B, facing financial difficulties, fell victim to a sophisticated job scam in October-November 2025. She was recruited for a fake remote job, received initial credits to build trust, and was then instructed to deposit her own funds (totalling £19,800) to access higher-value tasks, with promises of later withdrawal. When she tried to withdraw her supposed £40,000 earnings, the scammers made excuses. Barclays intervened at several payment points with written warnings and human interventions, asking probing questions about the payments. However, Ms B consistently lied during these interventions, claiming the payments were for personal crypto investment and denying she was being guided. She provided plausible explanations and sounded knowledgeable and confident. The ombudsman found that while Barclays could have intervened more robustly, the bank's actual interventions were not ineffective, and Ms B's consistent deception during interventions broke any causal link between bank failings and her loss. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Barclays should have intervened more robustly on certain payments (particularly payment 4 and payments 7-9), the bank's actual interventions were not ineffective in causing the loss. The key finding was that Ms B was consistently untruthful during the interventions, providing plausible cover stories about personal crypto investment and denying she was being guided. She sounded knowledgeable and confident, and despite agents asking open probing questions and covering job scams (which was the actual scam she was falling victim to), she maintained her false narrative. The ombudsman found the agents to be very diligent and that the interventions, combined with Firm R's interventions, were not causally linked to the loss. The funds were immediately emptied from the crypto account, so recovery was not possible. Under PSR and Consumer Duty, while banks must protect against fraud, the starting position is that liability for authorised payments rests with the payer, even when duped. The customer's own deception during interventions broke the causal chain between any bank failings and the loss.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website