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

Decision detail

Summary

Mr O complained that HSBC should refund over £20,000 he lost to scammers who contacted him offering a remote job. Mr O made payments to his own accounts, converted funds to cryptocurrency, and sent them to the scammers. HSBC and other firms intervened during the transaction period, but Mr O provided consistent untruthful answers claiming he was making long-term crypto investments. The ombudsman found the complaint not upheld because the evidence did not reasonably substantiate that the payments were lost to a scam, and even if they were, Mr O's deceptive answers to multiple firms would have prevented reasonable intervention from stopping the loss.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found two fundamental issues preventing liability. First, there was insufficient evidence that the disputed payments were actually lost to a scam, as the evidence provided was undated, unlinked to specific payments, and some appeared to relate to different individuals or platforms. Second, even assuming the payments were lost to a scam, Mr O's consistent provision of untruthful answers to multiple firms substantially prevented them from uncovering or preventing the fraud. The ombudsman found that reasonable, proportionate intervention was unlikely to have stopped the loss, as Mr O demonstrated determination to proceed (opening another bank account when one firm intervened) and continued despite relevant warnings, account freezes, and time to reconsider.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website