Barclays Bank UK PLC · DRN-6170970

Complaint Mr S is unhappy that Barclays Bank UK PLC didn’t reimburse him after he reported falling victim to a scam. Background In early 2022, Mr S was invited to invest his money with a company I’ll refer to as Company G. The details of the investment aren’t entirely clear. However, a limited company which Mr S is connected to appears to have invested with Company G too and I’ve seen the agreement between those parties. It appears to suggest Company G was structuring investments as a loan with the investor as the lender. The agreement says that “the Company shall utilise the Loan as proof of funds to enable a third party to arrange a line of credit…” and that investors could expect returns of 4% per month. Agreements would typically run to six months, although investments could be rolled over if both parties agreed. His representative says Mr S “was led to believe that the investment carried no risk, as the funds were held in a non-depletion account, with both capital and interest insured by a reputable insurance company, and a trustee overseeing the arrangement.” When Mr S didn’t receive the returns he expected, it occurred to him that he might have fallen victim to a scam and so he notified the bank. It didn’t agree to refund him. Mr S wasn’t happy with that and so he referred his complaint to this service. It was looked at by an Investigator who didn’t uphold it. Mr S disagreed with the Investigator’s opinion and so the complaint has been passed to me to consider and come to a final decision. Findings I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. As a starting point, the legal position is that a firm is generally required to process payments and withdrawals authorised by its customer, in line with the Payment Services Regulations (in this case, the 2017 regulations) and the account terms and conditions. It is accepted that the disputed payments were authorised, so Mr S is presumed liable at first instance. However, that is not the end of the story. Barclays was a signatory to the Contingent Reimbursement Model Code (CRM Code) which required banks to pay refunds to scam victims in certain circumstances. In addition, good industry practice required Barclays to monitor account activity or transactions that appear unusual or out of character and could indicate a risk of fraud. Where such concerns arise, I would expect the firm to take steps to protect its customer. This could involve issuing a clear warning during the payment process or contacting the customer to understand the circumstances behind the transaction. However, none of those expectations are relevant unless I’m persuaded Mr S was the victim of a scam. The threshold for establishing fraud is a high one. In criminal proceedings, the standard of proof is “beyond reasonable doubt” but this service assesses cases using the civil standard of proof, which is based on the balance of probabilities. Under this standard, a finding of fraud must be more likely than not. Even so, the bar remains high. It is not enough for fraud to be a compelling or persuasive explanation, nor is it sufficient for it to be the most

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likely among several possible explanations. It must be more probable than the opposite conclusion i.e. that fraud did not occur. I understand that Mr S invested his money and expected to be paid the returns that were promised. When that didn’t happen, I can understand why he concluded that he must have fallen victim to a scam. However, the mere fact that the company he invested with failed and therefore couldn’t perform its side of the contract doesn’t necessarily mean he is the victim of a scam. Companies can fail for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with fraud. It seems just as likely that this was a case of a legitimate investment that had gone wrong, rather than Mr S being the victim of a scam. In response to the Investigator’s view, Mr S’s representatives said that he attempted to claim under the insurance that was apparently protecting this credit agreement but discovered that the insurance documentation was fraudulent. Unfortunately, the representative hasn’t provided any evidence of the insurance documentation or the attempted claim and so it’s difficult to attach much significance to this argument. The representatives have said that one of the directors of Company G has a documented history of taking investor funds and failing to repay them. However. I’ve not been able to find anything in support of this claim, and Mr S’s representatives haven’t provided anything to substantiate it either. I’ve also had sight of the bank statements for the receiving account. I’m limited in terms of how much I can say about these, but unfortunately there’s nothing in there that’s consistent with this having been an APP scam. I am not seeking to downplay the seriousness of what has happened. Mr S has invested a substantial amount of money and has clearly been let down by Company G. However, my role is to determine whether his loss can properly be attributed to an APP scam. Nothing I’ve said in this decision should be taken as a declarative statement that Company G was legitimate and so Mr S can’t have fallen victim to a scam. While I remain open to the possibility that he did, he has only put forward a hypothesis that his payments stopped because Company G scammed him. He has not provided any evidence to support this assertion. In the absence of such evidence, there is no reasonable basis on which I could reach a finding in his favour. If additional evidence becomes available, Mr S should make it available to Barclays so that it can reconsider his claim. If he’s unhappy with how it responds, he may be able to refer a new complaint to this service Final decision For the reasons I’ve explained above, I don’t uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr S to accept or reject my decision before 27 April 2026. James Kimmitt Ombudsman

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