HOW TO USE IT TO FIGHT FOR A REFUND...

CONTACT your bank and point out its obligations under the British Standards Institution’s code of practice, PAS 17271:2017 ‘Protecting customers from financial harm as a result of fraud or financial abuse’.

The specific section to refer to is: 5.3 Detection of fraud and financial abuse.

This dictates that the organisation should have measures in place to detect suspicious transactions or activities that might indicate fraud or financial abuse.

The guide states that warning signs include multiple chequebooks, sudden increased spending, suspicious transfers to other accounts, multiple password attempts, logins from new devices or multiple geographical locations, sudden changes to the operation of the account, a large withdrawal or payment, a payment or series of payments to a new payee, or financial activity that matches a known method of fraud or financial abuse.

This means that suspicious transactions should have triggered some form of action and an appropriate member of staff should have been alerted.

So if you have paid someone new, who turns out to be a fraudster, or attempted to transfer an unusually large amount of money, the bank should have flagged it up as suspicious. It could then have blocked the payment or contacted you to ask further questions to ensure the payment was legitimate.

The bank must respond to your complaint within eight weeks. If you are unhappy with its response, you can ask the Financial Ombudsman Service to investigate your case free of charge. You must do so within six months of receiving your bank’s final response letter. Call 0800 023 4567 or go to financial-ombudsman.org.uk/contact-us/ complain-online.

The BSI code differs from the Contingent Reimbursement Model Code introduced in 2019. This voluntary scheme, which is to be updated this year, promises to refund bank scam victims where they have taken care to protect themselves.