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Recovery for victim of unauthorised scam - £14,000 returned back to the rightful owner
Published September 2, 20260 min read
Amount lost
£14,000
Amount recovered
£14,000
Duration
11 months
The client’s card details were obtained by scammers and subsequently added to a Google Pay account. The card was linked to a business account and the client had recently communicated with an employee regarding a purchase that needed to be made for the business. Upon receiving a notification to authorise the card on a new device, the client, believing it to be the legitimate employee, approved the request.
After the approval, multiple transactions were made on their account. The transactions continued to be made and rose in value. Our client, in a panicked state, reported this to the bank and asked them to freeze the card.
The bank took too long to act
Even after our client told the bank to freeze the card as they believed there to be fraudulent activity on the account, the bank was slow to act and the transactions continued to be made.
The client continued to lose money to an unauthorised scam, even when they asked the bank to protect them.
We knew the bank was at fault, however proving that they are at fault can be a different question. That’s where our expertise came into play. We conducted a thorough investigation and created a bespoke report outlining that the bank was at fault.
The bank, still claiming they did not do anything wrong, rejected the complaint.
We then escalated to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) and provided further evidence to outline why our client should be refunded. The FOS agreed that the bank was at fault, and our client was reimbursed £14,000 they lost to an unauthorised scam.
Summary
Card details added to a Google Pay account led to a run of transactions that continued even after our client asked the bank to freeze the card. The bank denied any fault. The Financial Ombudsman disagreed and our client was refunded the full £14,000.
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