Fraud and scams

• Transactions that the customer tells us they didn’t make or authorise – such as purchases of goods or services online or in stores or nightclubs.
• Scams where the customer was tricked into handing over their bank details, and the fraudster took money from their account
• Authorised push payment fraud where the customer has been tricked into transferring money to the fraudster’s account
• Other authorised scams where the customer has been tricked into handing over cash or making a card payment
• Identity (ID) theft, where a fraudster has used the customer’s identity to obtain goods, services, credit such as a loan or money.
• Cases where a customer feels they’ve been unfairly placed on a fraud prevention database

 If a complaint doesn’t fall under our jurisdiction, we’ll tell the consumer about other organisations that might be able to help them.

If a customer complains to you about the way your firm handled a fraud or scam, you must reply within 15 business days. According to the Financial Conduct Authority’s dispute resolution rules (DISP) 1.6.2A, this should be either:

• with a final response, or
• to indicate why you can’t yet answer the complaint and telling them when you will – which must be within 35 business days

 Please note, this is a much shorter timeframe than for other types of complaint. However, it's a requirement of both the Payment Services Regulations (PSR) and Electronic Money Regulations (EMR).

If you don’t reply within the time limits – or the customer disagrees with your response – they can bring their complaint to us. We’ll check it’s something we can deal with and, if it is, we’ll investigate.

We'll look at the facts and evidence from both you and your customer and consider any: 

• relevant laws and regulations
• regulators’ rules in place when the event happened
• guidance, standards and codes of practice in place at the time of the event

We follow the FCA’s dispute resolution rules (DISP) in the FCA Handbook. We’ll also look at how you’ve tried to put things right.

The evidence and information that you’ll need to provide will be different depending on what the complaint is about. Use our business file checker tool to find out what information you’ll need to provide.

If we uphold a complaint, we’ll ask you to put the consumer back in the position they'd have been in if the error hadn't happened – as far as possible – which may include paying financial compensation. 

We might also make an award for any distress and inconvenience. And we’ll consider whether you should add interest to any payments.

To find out how we approach complaints about a specific type of fraud or scam, select the relevant page link below.

• See the Payment Services Regulations 2017 for legislation on fraud and scams complaints.
• The Financial Conduct Authority's approach to payment services and electronic money includes what it considers to be ‘gross negligence’ in cases involving unauthorised transactions
• The CRM Code on the Lending Standards Board website
• The Payment Services Regulator’s (PSR's) work to prevent APP scams
• The PSR's policy clarifications on the Faster Payments APP scam reimbursement rules