Your rights to a refund when you’ve been a victim of fraud
You may be entitled to a refund from your bank if you believe you’ve been the victim of fraud. Whether you can get a refund or not depends on what exactly happened. This blog is designed to give you some information about what your rights are.
The PSR’s Mandatory Reimbursement
(7th October 2024 to present)
The Payment Services Regulator (PSRs) Mandatory Reimbursement is the latest regulation to be introduced, and covers all payment providers on a mandatory basis (there are over 900 of them!)
In short, victims who have paid via bank transfer to another UK bank will be eligible. The bank will then consider whether the customer has acted with ‘gross negligence’ when they were making the payments.
“The standard of caution”
If a bank argues that a customer has not reached the ‘standard of caution’ then they may decline a customer a refund. This is typically when they feel that the customer acted with ‘gross negligence’ by not taking warnings seriously enough. However, the regulation is clear that the warnings have to be high quality, relevant, timely, specific, and not generic. We consistently see payment providers giving overly generic warnings, which we do not feel reach the high bar banks should achieve.
“This is a civil matter”
This is an extremely common reason for banks to unfairly say no to you. We’ve even had the banks telling customers that something is a civil matter and not a fraud when the victim provided a confession video made by the fraudster! If you suspect you’ve been defrauded, you should be prepared to challenge the bank's decision or reach out to Refundee if you need help.
The Contingent Reimbursement Model Code
(28th May 2019 to 6th October 2024)
The Contingent Reimbursement Code came into force on 28 May 2019 and most UK banks signed up to the Code. You can find a list of those who have signed up here and it covers UK to UK bank transfers.
The reimbursement under this regulation is not officially capped, but as large cases often proceed to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) they are impacted by the FOS’s reimbursement cap of £415,000 per case.
The starting point is that if you are a victim of fraud and you meet the above criteria, you should be entitled to a full reimbursement. However, there are certain reasons where the bank can still deny you reimbursement. We frequently see banks unfairly applying these exclusions or telling you that you are ineligible. If you are told that you are not eligible, you should be prepared to challenge the bank’s decision. The below are two of the reasons why banks frequently say no:
“This is a civil matter”
In the same way as under the PSR’s MR (see above) banks will use this reason to falsely deny customers under the CRM code.
“You didn’t have a reasonable basis for belief”
Again, this is a reason we see banks use unfairly. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to pick apart a scam. But banks are supposed to put themselves in your shoes, taking into account everything that made the scam convincing to you at the time. Like where the banks say it’s not a scam, you should be prepared to challenge the bank if you feel they’ve used this exclusion clause against you unfairly.
Cases not covered by the Contingent Reimbursement Model Code (e.g. international transfers/payments in cryptocurrency/payments made prior to 28 May 2019)
You may still have a chance of success here but it can be more difficult. To get your money back you need to convincingly argue that:
The bank/account you sent money from should have noticed that your behaviour was unusual. For example, the payments were much larger than usual or you never normally buy cryptocurrency and;
If the bank or account provider did intervene appropriately, it would have exposed the scam and warned you about it. You need to argue this would have prevented your loss.
What if you need help or you have any questions?
Firstly, it’s the right thing to acknowledge that you can do this process yourself. Of course, doing it yourself can avoid having to incur a fee.
If you decided you would like our help, then you can Start Your Claim on our website. We will then investigate your case, let you know whether we can help, put together your case, and manage the process from beginning to end. Our fees are fair, industry lowest, and simple. We only charge a fee if we’re successful, and there are no hidden or upfront costs. Read more about them here.
We manage each case individually, however, the more victims who get in touch with us the better. We can build detailed knowledge of what happened, and use that across everyone’s case to improve their chances of success. That way, everyone benefits.
How would the process work?
Using Refundee, we manage everything for you. We start with an investigation to understand what happened in your specific circumstances. Then after some paperwork, we manage your case from the beginning to the end; from working with your bank through to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
These cases can take around 6-12 months, although they can be quicker or longer.
Who are Refundee?
Refundee are fraud refund specialists, and you can read about what our previous customers have said about us on Trustpilot. We’ve had good success in previous group cases, even when victims have been told by their banks that they’re not able to get a refund.
Here are the technical bits:
Refundee Ltd is a claims management company authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in respect of regulated claims management activity FRN: 937096.
Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office; registration number: A8986071.
Registered office address: Refundee, 3rd Floor, 86-90 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NE.
Registered as a company in England & Wales; number: 12855931.
