DRN-6267743

The complaint Mrs S complains that THE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY (“RBS”) did not reimburse the funds she lost to a scam. What happened Mrs S fell victim to a task-based job scam – where she thought she had taken on a fully remote job in which she had to complete a set amount of ‘tasks’ to earn commission and her salary. But sometimes special ‘tasks’ meant she had to top up her work account before she could earn the relevant commission. As a result of this scam, Mrs S sent just over £11,000 via a money remittance service that she had used before. These payments were spread out over just under a month between 16 August 2025 and 11 September 2025, with the largest individual payment being £2,000. When Mrs S realised she had been the victim of a scam on 12 September 2025, she contacted RBS and raised a scam claim. However, RBS issued a final response letter in which they explained the payments initially went to the money remittance service, Mrs S should contact that merchant to raise a complaint and they declined to reimburse her directly. Mrs S referred the complaint to our service and our Investigator looked into it. They explained that the payments themselves were not so high in value or frequent that they felt RBS needed to intervene before processing them. But they did note that RBS intervened in a payment to a new payee as part of the scam on 11 September 2025, however as Mrs S was not honest about the reason for the payment, RBS was unable to provide a relevant warning. Because of this, they did not think RBS had made an error in the circumstances. Mrs S disagreed with the findings. She felt that when compared to her own previous account activity, the pattern of the payments she made to the scam was unusual and that RBS should have intervened sooner. She also said that when she followed the guidance of the scammer and misled the bank, she was under a lot of pressure and was not thinking clearly, as she had borrowed money from friends and family to fund the scam payments. As an informal agreement could not 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. In deciding what’s 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 be good industry practice at the time. Broadly speaking, the starting position in law is that an account provider is expected to process payments and withdrawals that a customer authorises it to make, in accordance with the terms and conditions of the account. And a customer will then be responsible for the transactions that they have authorised.

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It’s not in dispute here that Mrs S authorised the payments in question as she believed they were part of a legitimate job opportunity. So, while I recognise that she didn’t intend the money to go to scammers, the starting position in law is that RBS was obliged to follow Mrs S’s instruction and process the payments. Because of this, she is not automatically entitled to a refund. The regulatory landscape, along with good industry practice, also sets out a requirement for account providers to protect their customers from fraud and financial harm. And this includes monitoring accounts to look out for activity that might suggest a customer was at risk of financial harm, intervening in unusual or out of character transactions and trying to prevent customers falling victims to scams. So, I’ve also thought about whether RBS did enough to try to keep Mrs S’s account safe. I’ve looked over the payments that Mrs S made to the scam and compared them to her genuine account activity. In doing so, I have also taken into consideration that the payments went to a genuine money remittance service, which Mrs S had used in the past for genuine payments. Because of this, I think it would be reasonable for RBS to treat these payments with a generally lower risk level than, for example, a payment to a brand new and unknown payee. Mrs S generally made payments on her RBS account that were lower than £1,000, but even considering this I think it is reasonable that RBS did not flag the scam payments as unusual sooner. While the value of some of the payments was higher than her usual spending, I still do not think they were of a high enough value to appear unusual overall. RBS process a significant amount of payments through their accounts daily and when the payments Mrs S made to the scam are considered holistically, I just don’t think the overall pattern or value of the payments were so out of character that I think they should reasonably have flagged as suspicious. I can see that on 11 September 2025, when Mrs S was instructed by the scammer to set up an account with a new money remittance service and attempted to send money to the scam that way, RBS did block the new payments and asked Mrs S to call them. In that call, Mrs S followed the instruction of the scammer to not tell RBS that the payments were part of a job, and instead Mrs N said she was sending money to a family friend abroad that she knew and had sent money to before. It is important to note here that it is a common tactic for scammers to build the trust with a victim and use that trust, along with the fear that all the money put in so far to the scam will be lost, to convince the victim to mislead financial institutions to ensure the funds are processed. This is something our service sees often so Mrs S is not alone when she followed the instruction of the scammer and did not reveal that the payment was being made as part of her new job. What I have to consider is if RBS should reasonably have been aware that Mrs S was misleading them and if they could have uncovered the specific scam that she was falling victim to. I’ve listened to the call and I don’t think there were any obvious signs that Mrs S was not being honest. The payment purpose she provided was not unreasonable and the amount she was attempting to send was also not significant. Because of this, I do not think RBS made an error when it did not uncover the scam or provide Mrs S with an appropriate warning. It follows that even if I were to agree that RBS should have intervened sooner, I think it is unlikely they would have been able to uncover the scam. This is because based on what I have seen, I think it’s more likely Mrs S would have continued to follow the instruction of the scammer and not reveal the true purpose of the payments. And I think it is unlikely that RBS could reasonably have uncovered the scam as a result.

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I understand that this will be very disappointing for Mrs S, and I recognise that she has been the victim of a cruel and manipulative scam. But I do not consider that it would be fair to hold RBS responsible for her loss, so I won’t be asking it to refund any of that loss to her. My final decision I do not uphold Mrs S’s complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mrs S to accept or reject my decision before 25 May 2026. Rebecca Norris Ombudsman

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