Not upheld: Service failures generally complaint against HSBC UK Bank Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Mr and Mrs B lost £6,500 to an investment scam after making four debit card payments to an overseas company between 22-25 September 2025. They complained that HSBC should have intervened to question the payments and that HSBC should have raised chargeback claims when they reported the scam. The ombudsman found that the payments were not sufficiently unusual or suspicious to trigger intervention, as they were modest in individual value and consistent with the customer's regular payment patterns. The ombudsman also concluded that chargeback claims would have had little reasonable prospect of success because the payments were authorized by the customer and the merchant was a genuine overseas-regulated company defending its position that it had supplied the services. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

While HSBC has a duty to intervene in transactions showing clear signs of fraud, the ombudsman found that these particular payments were not sufficiently unusual or suspicious to trigger intervention. Individually, the payments were not particularly high value, and Mr and Mrs B made regular monthly payments exceeding £2,000, so the amounts were not out of character. The sequence of four payments over one week, while escalating initially, was not frequent enough to raise particular suspicion. Regarding chargeback claims, the ombudsman concluded they would have had little prospect of success because the payments were authorized by Mr B, and the merchant was a genuine overseas-regulated company that disputed any claim by maintaining it had supplied the services paid for.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website