Stop blaming the victims of fraud!

With banks still failing to help many who lose money...

FINANCIAL scam victims are still being brushed off by the banks a year after a groundbreaking refund scheme was launched.

The new rules were supposed to put an end to the devastating cost of fraud. But as fraudsters seek to cash in on the coronavirus crisis, a new report by the payments regulator has revealed banks are still too quick to dismiss victims.

Money Mail launched its Stop The Bank

Scammers campaign 18 months ago to prevent blameless victims being left out of pocket. And we welcomed the introduction of a new voluntary code of conduct in May last year which set out how banks should treat customers who have been tricked into making payments.

This included a pledge to fully reimburse those who had done nothing wrong. Most major banks, nine in total, have now signed up to the code.

TSB has its own fraud guarantee that promises to reimburse innocent victims. Since April 15 last year the bank has reimbursed 99 pc of all fraud cases. The 1 pc that were rejected involved customers being involved in the fraud.

Yet only £4 in every £10 lost to the socalled push payment scams was refunded last year following the code’s introduction — leaving victims more than £41 million out of pocket, according to UK Finance figures. Before the code, £1.90 in every £10 was returned.

Now a review by the Lending Standards Board, which oversees the new code, reveals that some banks are still unfairly blaming victims to avoid paying refunds.

The regulator says banks had rejected some claims before considering the full circumstances. Others refused payouts because they claimed customers had not paid attention to general fraud warnings on the bank’s website. Banks are also failing to keep records of how they made decisions, the report says. The regulator has now told banks to review cases where customers may have been treated unfairly.

The disappointing report into the new rules and refund scheme is the second blow in just two months. In March new figures from the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) exposed that victims were being reimbursed in fewer than 50 pc of cases. And when banks do pay out, they rarely refund customers in full. The findings forced the watchdog to admit the code is not working as well as it had hoped, resulting in ‘inconsistent and poor outcomes for consumers’.

Fraud consultant Richard Emery, from 4Keys International, says: ‘I am deeply concerned that the banks are not complying with the code. The banks either do not understand the code, or are purposely not applying it correctly.’

Gareth Shaw, from lobby group Which?, says: ‘Many banks are falling far too short of providing the protection needed for blameless victims of bank transfer scams.

‘All banks signed up to the scams code should be required to regularly publish their reimbursement figures, to expose those that are making a mockery of it.’

Sam and Dave Pentin, both 53, were duped by a fraudster who posed as their solicitor on email to steal £14,200 they were putting down as a deposit on a property in Penryn, Cornwall.

Sam, a writer and businesswoman, says: ‘We saw no reason to question who we were communicating with.’

When the couple, from Falmouth, realised they had been scammed in December, Dave immediately called Lloyds. But five months on, they had not had any of it back.

Sam says: ‘Lloyds says it has been waiting for HSBC to respond but I feel as if it has washed its hands of us.’

Only after Money Mail intervened, did Lloyds agree to refund £8,024 it recovered from the HSBC account, and HSBC paid back the rest.

A Lloyds spokesman says: ‘We have a great deal of sympathy for Mr and Mrs Pentin. Unfortunately they received different account details in an email from a different address and did not check these details with the solicitor.’

Banking body UK Finance disputed the PSR’s data.

A spokesman says: ‘Customers who fall victim to authorised push payment fraud are reimbursed provided they did everything expected of them under the code. Each claim will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.’