DRN-6321351

The complaint Ms K complains that Santander UK Plc won’t provide her with a refund when she lost money to a flight purchase scam. What happened The detailed background to this complaint is well known to both parties. So, I’ll only provide a brief overview of some of the key events here. On 30 July 2025, Ms K was looking for a flight on a travel app she frequently used when she received a call from a person (the scammer) who made out they were an agent of a well- known travel company – Company L. As the price was attractive, but not too good to be true, she agreed to pay £1,197 for the flights and, after giving the fake agent her debit card details, she authorised a payment notification on her Santander banking app. Soon after, another payment notification appeared on her banking app but as she wasn’t expecting it and it contained a strange reference number she declined it. This payment caused her to suspect that the earlier flight payment she had authorised was a scam. Ms K immediately contacted Santander to report the £1,197 payment as a suspected scam and claim a refund. She also contacted Company L. It’s unclear when she did this but, on 28 October 2025, Company L said: • They had a booking reference, and a payment had been settled for the amount of £1,197.00 for (a booking reference with) a past date. • She could ‘raise a chargeback with your bank towards this transaction claiming as Fraud’. Santander miscategorised her claim and delayed processing her refund claim. This included them not asking questions to enable them to start the chargeback process until 21 October 2025. Ms K says she didn’t receive Santander’s 21 October 2025 letter, which: • Said they were missing some important information. • Asked her to send them correspondence showing how she had resolved the matter with Company L. • Gave her pre-paid envelope and a 14-day deadline. As Santander didn’t receive a response, they sent Ms K a second letter on 10 November 2025 with another 14-day deadline. In this letter, Santander added a comment that they only had limited time to process her claim. Presumably, this is because of the delay in starting the chargeback process which has a 120-day time limit. As Santander didn’t receive the required information from Ms K, they didn’t process the chargeback claim and the time limit (to raise one) ran out. Santander rejected Ms K’s refund claim. However, as they recognised that the timescale for an outcome on her scam claim had been excessive they provided her with compensation

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payments totalling £225. Ms K brought her complaint to our service as she thinks Santander should reimburse her financial loss. Also, pay further compensation for the distress and inconvenience she suffered due to the scam and excessive delays. Our investigator didn’t think that Santander could’ve prevented the payment. Regarding Santander not putting forward a chargeback, he referenced the letters they sent Ms K and thought it likely that a chargeback wouldn’t have been successful. Regarding Santander’s service errors, he thought their compensation payments were fair and reasonable. Ms K disagrees and when asking for an Ombudsman to make a final decision her points included the following: • Regarding a lack of intervention: o The payment in question was to a new payee and significantly higher than her usual pattern of transactions. Also, it was immediately followed by a second suspicious payment request (which I declined). • Regarding the chargeback claim not being made: o The chargeback window was shortened by Santander’s administrative error. o She ‘was not properly informed that failure to respond would result in losing chargeback rights’. o ‘The assertion that it was unlikely to succeed appears speculative rather than evidenced’. o ‘An assumption has been made that the merchant could demonstrate that the service was properly provided under a valid transaction’. I issued a provisional decision on 13 April 2026, and this is what I said: I’ve considered the relevant information about this complaint. My provisional decision is the same as the outcome reached by our investigator. But as Ms K may possibly have further evidence to submit, I’d like to give her a further opportunity to respond. The deadline for both parties to provide any further comments or evidence for me to consider is 27 April 2026. Unless the information changes my mind, my final decision is likely to be along the following lines. If I don’t hear from Ms K, or if they tell me they accept my provisional decision, I may arrange for the complaint to be closed as resolved without a final decision. What I’ve provisionally 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. Having done so, my provisional decision is not to uphold this complaint. I’ll explain why. I should first say: • Although there is limited information from Company L, Ms K does appear to have been the victim of a cruel purchase scam and I’m very sorry that she has lost an amount of money that is significant to her.

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• In making my findings, I must consider the evidence that is available to me and use it to decide what is more likely than not to have happened, on the balance of probabilities. I first considered the: APP Scam Reimbursement Rules Unfortunately, the APP Scam Reimbursement Rules, introduced by the Payment Systems Regulator on 7 October 2024, for customers who have fallen victim to an APP scam, don’t apply to the payment in question. This is because card payments aren’t included. I then considered: The Payment Services Regulations 2017 (PSR) and Consumer Duty PSR Under the PSR and in accordance with general banking terms and conditions, banks should execute an authorised payment instruction without undue delay. The starting position is that liability for an authorised payment rests with the payer, even where they are duped into making that payment. There’s no dispute that Ms K made the payments here, so they are considered authorised. However, in accordance with the law, regulations and good industry practice, a bank should be on the look-out for and protect its customers against the risk of fraud and scams so far as is reasonably possible. If it fails to act on information which ought reasonably to alert a prudent banker to potential fraud or financial crime, it might be liable for losses incurred by its customer as a result. Banks do have to strike a balance between the extent to which they intervene in payments to try and prevent fraud and/or financial harm, against the risk of unnecessarily inconveniencing or delaying legitimate transactions. So, I consider Santander should fairly and reasonably: Have been monitoring accounts and any payments made or received to counter various risks such as anti-money laundering and preventing fraud and scams. o Have been monitoring accounts and any payments made or received to counter various risks such as anti-money laundering and preventing fraud and scams. o Have systems in place to look for unusual transactions or other signs that might indicate that its customers were at risk of fraud (among other things). This is particularly so given the increase in sophisticated fraud and scams in recent years, which banks are generally more familiar with than the average customer. o In some circumstances, irrespective of the payment channel used, have taken additional steps, or made additional checks, before processing a payment, or in some cases declined to make a payment altogether, to help protect customers from the possibility of financial harm from fraud. Consumer Duty From July 2023 Santander had to comply with the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) Consumer Duty which required financial services firms to act to deliver good outcomes for their customers. Whilst the Consumer Duty does not mean that customers will always be protected from bad outcomes, Santander was required to

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act to avoid foreseeable harm by, for example, operating adequate systems to detect and prevent fraud. Also, look out for signs of vulnerability. I couldn’t see any information on known vulnerabilities and with the above in mind, I looked closely at the payment and Ms K’s statements. Having done so, I wouldn’t have expected Santander to have been concerned about a payment of £1,197 and recognised that she might potentially be at risk of financial harm. I say this because: • Banks like Santander process thousands of payments each day and they can’t be expected to intervene on all of them. • As mentioned above, they have to carefully weigh up when to intervene as, in addition to their responsibility to protect their customers from fraud and scams, they have a responsibility not to delay legitimate transactions and cause unnecessary inconvenience. • Although I appreciate the payment was large to Ms K, and her spending tended to be less than £400, I don’t think it would’ve stood out as a particularly large amount for her to spend and for a bank to justify an intervention that would’ve been a card block. Also, Ms K had earlier made two payments for £1,000 and £1,133.33. • It was an isolated payment to a well-known merchant for an amount that wasn’t unusual for a travel agent. Also, there was no obvious scam pattern. I then considered whether Santander failed to recover Ms K’s payment by processing a card chargeback. Chargeback claim The chargeback process provides a way for the card issuer to help a customer claim a full or partial refund of the amount they paid on their card, if certain things go wrong with what they’d purchased or thought they’d purchased. The process is overseen by the card scheme (not Santander) who set out various rules covering things such as what sort of scenarios are eligible for chargeback, the kind of evidence required, and the timescales for a chargeback to be raised. Generally speaking, it is good practice for a card issuer to attempt a chargeback where the right exists and there’s some prospect of success. That said, they’re not guaranteed to be successful, and a consumer is not able to demand that their card issuer attempt one. Whilst Santander should’ve sent their two letters referenced above (in which they requested information) sooner, the timeframes they gave Ms K were still sufficient for a claim to be made. Although Ms K says she didn’t receive the 21 October 2025 letter, I can’t see that she has commented on the 10 November 2025 letter, which said there was limited time to process her claim, and given a reason why she didn’t respond. The Company L letter does appear to support Ms K’s claim that she was scammed as it says she should contact her bank for a chargeback. However, there is a lack of detail about when Ms K contacted Company L and the booking name, date and type. Even if Ms K responded to Santander’s letter dated 10 November 2025, I’m currently not persuaded that the chargeback would’ve been a) attempted or b) successful. I say this because, as mentioned, the Company L complaint information provided to our service by Ms K, at a later date, is very limited and: A. Santander isn’t obligated to attempt a claim if there is no prospect of success. B. On balance of probabilities, if Santander did attempt a claim:

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• A scammer appearing to have made a booking for travel services in another person’s name (using Ms K’s money) would’ve still meant Company L provided a service (although not to Ms K). • Company L would’ve then been able to submit information on a service they provided. • The chargeback dispute service, set up for quick and large-scale decisions on disputes over service, would’ve focused on the service being provided as opposed to undertaking analysis of a scam allegation. I appreciate this may seem unfair but submitting banks, who are not the adjudicators, do see scam claims made on behalf of their customers being rejected where the merchant provides evidence of a service being provided. Finally, I considered Santander’s compensation offer for poor service, to see if it was fair and reasonable. Considering the lack of information, that there was still time to process a chargeback and that the distress here has been caused by a scammer rather than Santander, I think the £225 they offered is fair and reasonable. So, having considered all the information on file, whilst I genuinely empathise with Ms K’s financial loss and distress, for the reasons mentioned above, my provisional decision is not to uphold this complaint against Santander UK Plc. My provisional decision My provisional decision is not to uphold this complaint against Santander UK Plc. This is subject to any comments that either Ms K or Santander UK Plc may wish to make. These must be received by 27 April 2026. 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. Further to my above provisional decision, I didn’t get a response from either party. As no further arguments or evidence have been produced in response to my provisional decision my view remains the same. I therefore adopt my above provisional decision and reasons as my final decision. My final decision For the reasons mentioned in my above provisional decision, my final decision is not to uphold this complaint against Santander UK Plc. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Ms K to accept or reject my decision before 26 May 2026. Paul Douglas Ombudsman

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