DRN-6072691

Complaint Mrs M is unhappy that Barclays Bank UK Plc (Barclays) didn’t reimburse her after she reported falling victim to a scam. Background In 2024, Mrs M wanted to build an extension on her home. She wanted to hire a particular construction company, but it couldn’t start for over a year. However, it recommended a different builder - a private individual I’ll refer to as Mr S. Mr S was able to start the job sooner. Mrs M was happy to go ahead and so she hired Mr S to complete the work. She used her Barclays account to make the following bank transfers to him: - £3,500 on 6 June 2024 - £3,500 on 17 June 2024 - £200 on 26 September 2024 - £420 on 3 October 2024 Some very basic and limited preparatory work was carried out but, according to Mrs M, no meaningful progress was made. Mr S offered a series of excuses as to why substantive work couldn’t yet start. He then stopped communication with Mrs M, despite her efforts to chase him up. Mrs M determined that she must have fallen victim to a scam and so she notified Barclays. It didn’t agree to reimburse her. It said it considered this to be a private civil dispute and so it didn’t think it had any obligation to reimburse her. Mrs M wasn’t happy with that response and so she referred her complaint to this service. It was looked at by an Investigator who didn’t uphold it. Mrs M 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 Mrs M is presumed liable at first instance. At the time, Barclays was a signatory to the Contingent Reimbursement Model Code (the CRM Code), overseen by the Lending Standards Board. Under certain circumstances, the CRM Code required firms to reimburse customers who had fallen victim to authorised push payment (APP) scams. However, for Mrs M to benefit from the protection offered by the CRM Code, the payments she made have to fit its definition of an APP scam. Its definition is:

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“a transfer of funds across Faster Payments …. where … (ii) The Customer transferred funds to another person for what they believed were legitimate purposes but which were in fact fraudulent.” In other words, to conclude that Mrs M was the victim of a scam, it must be shown that the purpose for which she made the payments differed from the purpose for which Mr S received them, and that this difference arose because of dishonesty or deception on the part of Mr S. The key question, therefore, is what Mr S intended at the time the payments were made. While I cannot know his intentions with any certainty, I must examine the available evidence and determine what those intentions were likely to have been. Since the Investigator issued her view of the complaint, there has been a significant development in the available evidence. I’ve found that new evidence sufficiently persuasive to say that this should be treated as an APP scam, rather than a civil dispute. I emailed Barclays on 17 March 2026 to explain my reasoning: “I know that she had reported the contractor to the police but no meaningful action had followed. However, I have now seen messages from the police showing that the contractor has been arrested and interviewed in connection with a number of fraud related offences, including ones that relate to his agreement with [Mrs M]. She also says that he has admitted guilt to the police, but I've not seen any independent evidence to back that up. However, the fact that her complaint about the contractor progressed to this stage does, in my view, support her contention that she was the victim of an APP scam. It would be unusual for the police to undertake a substantive investigation into an alleged rogue trader and progress as far as arrest and an interview under caution unless the weight of evidence suggested a criminal offence had been committed. As a result, I'm likely to say that she was the victim of an APP scam […] I don't think I can see any good grounds for saying that any of the exceptions to reimbursement [under the CRM Code] would apply on the facts of this case and so it follows that she should be reimbursed.” Barclays disagreed with that conclusion. It correctly observed that there is currently no evidence that Mr S has been charged with any offence, and that the mere fact that he has been arrested doesn’t mean an assumption can be made about his guilt. That position is, of course, correct. The question of Mr S’s guilt can only be definitively determined if a conviction is secured through the courts. 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. While Mr S hasn’t been convicted of an offence, I think the seriousness with which the police are taking the complaints against him suggests that this threshold has been met. While the evidence supporting the conclusion that this was an authorised push payment scam is compelling, it is not conclusive. Nevertheless, in circumstances where there is a prima facie strong case that Mr S defrauded Mrs M, I do not consider it fair or reasonable to require her to wait for the outcome of the criminal process before the matter is resolved. Given the significant backlogs affecting the criminal justice system, this question may not be definitively resolved for many years. Overall, for the reasons I have given, I’m satisfied that these payments are covered by the CRM Code. Under the CRM Code, firms are expected to reimburse customers who are victims of APP scams in all but a limited range of circumstances. Broadly summarised, it allows a firm to not reimburse its customer if it can show that:

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• The customer ignored an effective warning in relation to the payment being made • The customer made the payment without a reasonable basis for believing that the person or business with whom they transacted was legitimate. From the evidence that’s been submitted, I can’t see that Barclays provided a warning in connection with any of these payments. Mrs M can’t, therefore, be said to have ignored an effective one. In addition to that, I don’t think she can be said to have made these payments without a reasonable basis for believing she was dealing with a legitimate tradesman. There was no negative information online concerning Mr S and so she couldn’t have carried out any additional checks. Furthermore, he’d been recommended by a well-established business, and she understandably attached significance to that recommendation. Other issues Mrs M has also expressed concerns about the service she received from Barclays. She feels that the way her complaint was handled entitles her to additional compensation for the distress and inconvenience she experienced. I have considered her concerns carefully and I fully recognise that this has been a difficult and frustrating experience for her. Mrs M has been unfortunate in that there have been significant delays in her case progressing and in compensation ultimately being paid, and I appreciate the impact this will have had on her at an already stressful time. That said, it is important to consider the context in which Barclays was dealing with her complaint. There were material developments in the evidence after the complaint was first raised with the bank. Mrs M notified Barclays in September 2025 that she believed she had been the victim of a scam, but it was not until December 2025 that she provided evidence which, in my view, was sufficiently persuasive to demonstrate that this was most likely a scam rather than a private civil dispute. I understand Mrs M’s frustration that Barclays did not accept her claim or reimburse her at the outset. However, the fact that it didn’t do so does not, in itself, mean that the bank acted unfairly or unreasonably. Based on the information available to it at the time, the evidence supporting the claim was limited, and the conclusions Barclays reached were not unreasonable in those circumstances. I am aware that Mrs M later submitted further evidence to the bank after the Investigator’s view, including the evidence on which I have relied to reach a different overall outcome. Barclays did not revise its position in response to that information and instead referred Mrs M back to this service. While I appreciate that this will have felt disappointing and unhelpful from Mrs M’s perspective, it is not uncommon for a bank, once a case is awaiting an Ombudsman’s decision, to wait for that process to conclude rather than continue further consideration of the complaint. Taking everything into account, while I am sympathetic to the frustration and upset Mrs M has experienced, I am not persuaded that Barclays’ handling of the complaint amounts to poor service or that it justifies an additional award for distress and inconvenience. Final decision For the reasons I’ve explained, I uphold this complaint. If Mrs M accepts my final decision, Barclays Bank UK Plc should reimburse the transactions listed above. It should also add 8% simple interest per annum calculated to run from the date I shared the new evidence (19 March 2026) until the date any settlement is paid.

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Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mrs M to accept or reject my decision before 26 May 2026. James Kimmitt Ombudsman

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