Barclays Bank UK PLC · DRN-5628097

The complaint Mr P complains that Barclays Bank UK PLC (“Barclays”) won’t refund him money he lost, after he fell victim to a scam. In bringing his complaint, Mr P also has representation from his son – but for ease of reading I will refer to Mr P in the main throughout this decision. What happened The background to this complaint is well known to all parties, so I won’t repeat everything in detail here. But in summary, I understand it to be as follows. In 2019, Mr P made an investment, which was unsuccessful. He was subsequently contacted by three different companies, who told Mr P that they would be able to help him recover the money he had lost through the investment. Unknown to him at the time, Mr P was not dealing with legitimate companies, but with fraudsters. The fraudsters subsequently persuaded Mr P to send a great deal of payments, which overall amounted to a substantial amount of money. To facilitate the payments, the scam saw Mr P making faster payments from his Barclays account. Alongside this, Mr P made payments from accounts he held with other banking providers – which were made by way of faster payments, card payments as well as Mr P making cash withdrawals which were then handed over to couriers. Between 6 October 2022 and 15 November 2022, at the instruction of the fraudsters, Mr P sent multiple faster payments from his Barclays account to a number of different payees, totalling over £200,000. Our Investigator provided a list of transactions within their view, so I won’t then repeat them all again here. Mr P realised he’d been scammed when one of the perpetrators was captured and convicted of committing fraud, leading to a fraudster being imprisoned. Mr P raised the matter with Barclays. Barclays was a signatory to the Lending Standards Board’s Contingent Reimbursement Model (the CRM Code). This meant Barclays had made a commitment to reimburse customers who are victims of authorised push payment scams except in limited circumstances. Barclays didn’t uphold Mr P’s complaint, in summary this was because it didn’t think Mr P had a reasonable basis for belief when making the payments. Alongside this, it said it didn’t think it could have done any more to have prevented this scam. It said it had relevant scam conversations with Mr P and he hadn’t been totally honest with it. It added that Mr P didn’t believe any of its agents and it invoked the Banking Protocol – and even after it had frozen his account, he continued to make payments from accounts he held elsewhere. Unhappy with Barclays response, Mr P brought his complaint to this service. One of our Investigator’s looked into things, but he didn’t think the complaint should be upheld. In summary, he agreed that Barclays had fairly established that Mr P didn’t have a reasonable basis for believing the scam. Our Investigator went on to say that he didn’t think any warning

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given by Barclays would have uncovered the scam. He also didn’t think Barclays had missed any opportunity to recover the money Mr P had lost. Mr P didn’t agree with our Investigator’s view. In summary, he argued; - He was a vulnerable person and is entitled to protection and compensation under the CRM code. - Barclays had not acted as it could have to prevent financial loss. As agreement couldn’t be reached the complaint has been passed to me for a final decision. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. Mr P, in his submissions and in response to our Investigator’s view, has provided some detailed arguments as to why he thinks Barclays is liable to reimburse him the full amount of the money he lost. I thank him for this. I think it’s worth noting that I won’t be responding in kind, and I won’t necessarily go through every single point on a strict point-by-point basis, nor go through all the potentially relevant rules line-by-line, as a court might. I’m very aware that I’ve summarised this complaint briefly, in less detail than has been provided, and in my own words. No discourtesy is intended by this. Instead, I’ve focussed on what I think is the heart of the matter here. If there’s something I’ve not mentioned, it isn’t because I’ve ignored it. I haven’t. I’m satisfied I don’t need to comment on every individual point or argument to be able to reach what I think is the right outcome. Our rules allow me to do this. This simply reflects the informal nature of our service as a free alternative to the courts. In deciding what is fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of a complaint, I’m required to take into account relevant: law and regulations; regulators’ rules, guidance and standards; codes of practice; and, where appropriate, what I consider to have been good industry practice at the time. I’ve also thought about the CRM Code, which was in force at the time Mr P made the payments subject to this dispute. Alongside this, Barclays has a longstanding obligation to be on the lookout for unusual and out of character transactions which might indicate their customer is at risk of financial harm from fraud. The starting principle of the CRM Code is that a firm should reimburse a customer who is victim of an APP fraud except in a small number of circumstances. The exceptions to reimbursement relevant to this case are: - The customer made the payment without a reasonable basis for believing that: the payee was the person the customer was expecting to pay; the payment was for genuine goods or services; and/or the person or business with whom they transacted was legitimate. - The customer ignored an effective warning in relation to the payment being made. I’ve thought about whether Mr P had a reasonable basis for believing that the payments he made were for a genuine purpose and/or the person or business with whom he transacted was legitimate. While I’m sorry to disappoint Mr P, having thought about all the

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circumstances of this complaint, I’m not persuaded he had a reasonable basis for believing that he was making legitimate payments. I say that as I do think there were things about the situation that ought reasonably to have caused Mr P some concern about the legitimacy of the requests for money; - Mr P has said he thought he was dealing with a legitimate company(s), but the faster payments he made went to multiple different payees, including to personal accounts and different companies. The companies and individuals Mr P paid seemingly had no connection to the firms that he believed he was dealing with. I think a legitimate company would typically request that payments be made into an account in its own name – rather than to so many unrelated accounts. There doesn’t seem to have been any plausible explanation given, nor one asked for, as to why it was necessary to pay multiple different accounts. - Barclays has said Mr P said that the fraudsters had coached him to mislead it regarding the purpose of the payments. I don’t think it’s likely that any genuine company would require its clients/customers to mislead their banks. - It seems that both Barclays and the police, while of course not knowing for sure that Mr P was being scammed, expressed concerns regarding the activity on his account. Mr P’s family were also expressing their doubts about the legitimacy. But Mr P chose not to heed those concerns. - While I understand why a firm may charge fees, in the individual circumstances of this case Mr P has paid more than double the amount of his original investment. While I acknowledge it was Mr P’s understanding that these fees would be recoverable, I don’t think a legitimate firm would reasonably expect or charge such fees and I can’t see that Mr P was given any reasonable explanation as to why they were required. I’m mindful that, taking any of the individual factors above in isolation, they may not have been enough to have prevented Mr P from proceeding to make the payments. But when taken collectively and considering the specific circumstances of this case and the factors in the round, on balance, I think that there was enough going on and sufficient red flags that Mr P ought reasonably to have been concerned that things weren’t as they first seemed. I’ve also considered whether Barclays met its standards under the CRM code in terms of the warnings it provided to Mr P when making the payments. The code also says; SF ….. The assessment of whether a Firm has met a standard or not should involve consideration of whether compliance with that standard would have had a material effect on preventing the APP scam that took place In the circumstances of this case, I don’t think better warnings or intervention by Barclays would have made a difference here, and I’m persuaded there is convincing evidence to support this finding. Even if I thought Barclays ought to have done more than it did or that its interventions could have been better, which in the circumstances of this case would be difficult to do, given it invoked the Banking Protocol and reported the matter to the Police, which is one of the highest levels of protection available to it, I’d also need to be persuaded, and this is ultimately the crux of this complaint, that any further intervention would have had a material effect on preventing the loss.

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This is often finely balanced and, of course, I can’t be sure what would have happened if Barclays had done things differently, I have to base my outcome on the balance of probabilities, that is, what I consider is more likely than not to have happened, based on what I know and the evidence presented to me. The weight of evidence here supports that, such was Mr P’s belief that he wasn’t being scammed, that he consistently misled Barclays (and his other banking providers) around the purpose of the transactions he was making. In his submissions, Mr P has explained that in his profession he had been used to giving banks answers that sound sensible and logical but may not always be 100% truthful – and I’m persuaded that is what he did here. From what I’ve seen and heard, at no point did Mr P divulge to any of his banking providers the true purpose of the payments he was making. While I don’t think there was any malicious intent in this, rather I think Mr P did so due to his belief that he wasn’t being scammed and that he just wanted to get the payments through – in not being candid with his banks, he effectively reduced the opportunity for them to protect him. I’m mindful that victims of fraud are often given ‘cover stories’ or given instructions around what they should tell their banks if questioned, which are designed to try and circumvent a bank’s attempts to protect their customers. So, Barclays ought to be alert to this. But in the circumstances of this case, the explanations Mr P gave as to why he was making the transfers weren’t inherently suspicious. For example - Mr P was consistent in explaining to Barclays that the payments were for refurbishments he was doing to his property. But when questioned further, Mr P was able to explain to Barclays that he had previously owned a company that was involved in the building trade, that the contractors he was using were people that he had come across over the years, that work had started and that he had met these people in person. Indeed, some transactions Mr P made from Barclays were made to companies that were registered on Companies House whose nature of business was in the building industry, which would have made the answers even more plausible. I’m also mindful that Mr P considered interventions by his banks as ‘overly fussy’ and had expressed his dissatisfaction when payments were blocked. He also considered that it was ‘illogical’ when Barclays suspended his account due to the concerns it had. So, I think it more likely than not Mr P was determined to make the payments. Which I think is also supported given that the police, his family (who described Mr P’s belief in the scam as ‘total’) and his other banking providers were also not able to persuade him otherwise. Mr P has explained that he was of a ‘fixed mindset” and that he was sure that he wasn’t being scammed. Sadly, it seems to me that Mr P was so under the spell of the fraudster and determined to make the payments that, even if intervention had gone as far as preventing him from making payments and blocking his account – which Barclays did, he’d have simply sent the funds from another of his accounts. Which I’m satisfied is evident and supported by what he went on to do, with Mr P going on to send payments from his other banking providers, once he was unable to make any further payments from Barclays. I do not think it’s likely Barclays would’ve had any better prospect, than the police or his family in persuading Mr P that he might have been at continued risk of financial harm or been able to break him from the spell of the fraud. By his own admission, Mr P has said that no amount of telling by bank employees would have changed that he was 110% sure his money was safe.

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Overall, in the individual circumstances of this case I don’t think, based on the evidence available, I can fairly or reasonably say that any warning Barclays could have provided would have had a material effect on preventing the scam. Mr P has referenced the CRM Code’s provision for vulnerable consumers. The CRM Code says, in summary, that: ‘A Customer is vulnerable to APP scams if it would not be reasonable to expect that Customer to have protected themselves, at the time of becoming victim of an APP scam, against that particular APP scam, to the extent of the impact they suffered.’ I’ve thought about Mr P’s submissions on this matter and about his circumstances carefully and I’ve taken that into account when deciding this complaint. I’ve also considered the Financial Conduct Authorities’ (FCA) guidance on the fair treatment of vulnerable customers, which would describe Mr P as an ‘older old’ consumer. The purpose of highlighting such characteristics of a consumer is to help identify those at heightened risk of financial harm due to fraud and scams. Importantly, many people of Mr P’s age and above may well not be obviously vulnerable, indeed I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that Barclays had been advised, before the scam, of Mr P being vulnerable to the point where it needed to make any adjustments in terms of how he operated his account. But it is a fact that fraudsters target older people, and so they are generally at greater risk. On balance, I’m not persuaded, when considering the particular circumstances of this case, that Mr P was unable to reasonably protect himself from the scam. I say that as having listened to calls Barclays had with Mr P, he comes across as a confident and articulate customer. As well as this, he also seemed to have leant on a tactic that he indicated he had used within his profession, saying that he was used to dealing with bank’s questions and giving answers that weren’t 100% truthful to satisfy them. This doesn’t demonstrate that somebody’s thinking is clouded, and I find it unlikely that somebody without the mental capacity would have been able to do that. I’m mindful that Mr P’s son has referred to a judge (who sentenced the fraudster mentioned in the ‘what happened’ section of this decision) referring to Mr P as a ‘vulnerable elderly man’. But I wouldn’t consider Mr P to be vulnerable based solely on his age. I’m also mindful that Mr P’s family has said they also considered taking Mr P to the Court of Protection, but they thought this would fail given Mr P didn’t lack mental capacity and they thought he would pass any GP’s medical test around his mental capacity. Overall, from what I’ve seen and heard the evidence more supports the notion that Mr P could not be considered as so vulnerable that he wouldn’t have been able to protect himself from this type of scam. I’ve thought about whether Barclays took reasonable steps to recover Mr P’s funds once it was made aware he was the victim of a scam. From what I can see Barclays did reach out to the beneficiary banks (the banks to which the payments were made), but it wasn’t able to recover any of the money that had been sent. Sadly, this is not unusual as scammers usually remove funds soon after payments have been made. So, I don’t think Barclays could have done anymore to recover Mr P’s funds. I have a great deal of sympathy with Mr P being the victim of what was clearly a cruel scam that has had a significant impact on him. But, for the reasons I’ve explained and with all things considered, I don’t find that Barclays is liable to refund Mr P under the terms of the CRM Code. Nor that the bank was at fault in making the payments Mr P had instructed it to

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make or for any other reason. My final decision My final decision is that I don’t uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr P to accept or reject my decision before 15 April 2026. Stephen Wise Ombudsman

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