Barclays Bank UK PLC · DRN-6228791

The complaint Mr R is complaining that Barclays Bank UK PLC hasn’t refunded payments that were made from his account when he fell victim to romance scams. What happened In early 2023 Mr R joined a dating website and used it to chat to people. Payments were made from his debit card with Barclays through his linked account at an Electronic Money Institution which I’ll call “P”. Mr R later disputed the payments - some as authorised payments he’d been tricked into making, and some which he says he didn’t authorise. Mr R was told that to meet people from the website in person he’d need to sign up for a membership ID card. He made four payments towards the membership ID card to an individual through his account with P, as follows: Date Amount 13/03/2023 £352.99 24/03/2023 £352.99 27/03/2023 £202.99 30/03/2023 £203.99 Mr R thought the payments for the membership ID card would be refunded to him, but they weren’t. Mr R began corresponding with someone he’d met on this website (who I’ll call M) and 59 payments totalling nearly £10,000 were made to her between 14 March 2023 and 17 April 2023. Mr R disputes authorising most of these payments, although at various points in his fraud claim and complaint he’s said he did authorise the first payment to M of £31.50 which was to pay for her petrol, and also two other payments of £77.99 and £162.99 made on 16 April 2023 and 17 April 2023. In a call with Barclays, he also confirmed a payment of £162.99 made on 8 April 2023 had been made by him. He complained to Barclays about these payments to M but it didn’t agree to refund them. Mr R also began chatting to a different individual and arranged to meet them in a hotel. He made four payments which he thought would be used to pay for the hotel, as follows: Payment Date Amount Status 1 16/03/2023 £252.99 Not refunded 2 20/03/2023 £702.99 Refunded via chargeback 3 22/03/2023 £252.99 Refunded via chargeback

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4 24/03/2023 £502.99 Refunded via chargeback Mr R arrived at the hotel and found that the accommodation he’d expected hadn’t been booked. He reported this to Barclays as a scam, and it raised chargebacks for Payments 2 to 4. Barclays says these chargebacks weren’t defended by the merchant (P), so they were refunded to Mr R. A chargeback wasn’t raised on Payment 1 although Mr R says he did dispute this payment too (but Barclays says he didn’t). Mr R also found that a continuous payment authority (CPA) had been set up on his Barclays debit card to pay subscription fees for a different dating website. He says he cancelled the CPA in February 2023, but the following payments were still made. Date Amount Status 9 March 2023 £48.97 Not refunded 16 April 2023 £48.70 Refunded 21 April 2023 £48.92 Refunded After Mr R disputed these payments, Barclays refunded the two payments made in April 2023, but it didn’t refund the payment made in March 2023. Mr R complained to Barclays about what had happened and it issued its final response letter in February 2024. It didn’t agree to refund the remaining disputed payments. Mr R then brought his complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Our Investigator upheld Mr R’s complaint in part. She thought Barclays should refund the first payment made under the CPA on 9 March 2023 because Mr R had told it he had cancelled the subscription in February 2023 and Barclays had already refunded the other two payments on this basis. She also thought Barclays could have handled Mr R’s scam claim better because it had missed opportunities to address his concerns about missing payments - and she also noted there was a delay in Barclays contacting Mr R for further information about his claim, which hadn’t been explained. She felt that Barclays could have been more helpful in finding out what was happening with Mr R’s claim from its fraud department when he visited the branch and he’d been caused additional stress and worry by this. So, she asked Barclays to pay Mr R £200 in compensation. However, the Investigator didn’t think Barclays needed to refund the remaining disputed payments to Mr R. This was because she concluded that Mr R had authorised all the payments to M, based on what he’d said to Barclays about what had happened which suggested that he was aware of the payments and had made them himself, along with technical evidence from P which appeared to show that he (rather than an unauthorised third party) had accessed his account with it to instruct the payments. She didn’t think Barclays ought to have intervened in the payments because without further information about their circumstances she couldn’t conclude that they’d been made as a result of a scam. And she didn’t think Barclays could have recovered the payments via chargeback. The Investigator didn’t think Barclays ought to have identified a scam risk and intervened in the payments for the membership ID card, or to the hotel (which Mr R doesn’t dispute authorising) because they didn’t look suspicious or unusual based on how Mr R usually operated his account. And she didn’t think Barclays ought to have done any more to recover these payments via chargeback either. She explained that although Barclays had raised

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chargebacks in relation to three of the payments to book the hotel on Mr R’s request and they were subsequently refunded to him, Barclays’ records suggested this was because they weren’t defended by P. But this didn’t mean they were necessarily valid chargeback claims under the rules. Barclays responded to the Investigator’s view to say it agreed to refund the remaining disputed CPA payment of £48.97 (with 8% simple interest per year) and also to pay Mr R £200 in compensation. Mr R disagreed with the Investigator’s view and asked for an Ombudsman’s review, but he didn’t explain the reasons why he disagreed in detail. The Investigator gave Mr R some more time to respond with further information he said he intended to provide before an Ombudsman’s review, but he didn’t respond by the final extended deadline the Investigator had given him. Mr R’s complaint was passed to me for review and a decision. I reviewed what had happened and based on what I had seen up to that point, I asked Barclays if it would consider offering a refund of Mr R’s payments from 14 April 2023 onwards, in addition to what it had already agreed to do after the Investigator’s view. I thought that by this point, the account activity had begun to appear suspicious. Although the payments Mr R made to M were quite low in value, he was making repeated payments of the same value in the same day and at that point had already made around 30 payments. I thought that if Barclays had intervened at this point it would likely have prevented Mr R from making further payments, because when Barclays did speak to Mr R on 18 April 2023 he was broadly honest about making payments to someone he had met online, and Barclays immediately identified that this was likely a romance scam and no further payments were made to M. So, I thought the same would likely have happened if Barclays had intervened at an earlier point. Barclays did agree to refund 50% of Mr R’s payments to M from 14 April 2023, with 8% simple interest per year from the date of the outcome of Mr R’s complaint to it. This was 50% of 26 payments totalling £3,972.74, which equated to a refund of £1,986.37. I communicated Barclays’ offer to Mr R and I explained why I thought it was, broadly, a fair and reasonable way to settle his complaint. I explained, in summary, why I thought 14 April 2023 was an appropriate intervention point. And I also explained why I thought it was fair for Mr R to share liability with Barclays under the principle of contributory negligence, in all the circumstances. When we contacted Mr R to find out if he accepted Barclays’ offer he said he wasn’t prepared to accept it. He thought Barclays had been negligent and ought to have sent him a text message when each payment was made. He indicated he had further information to provide. Our Investigator agreed to extend the deadline for Mr R to provide this until 16 March 2026. But Mr R didn’t provide any further information or comments for me to consider by the deadline. So, I’m now proceeding to issue my 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.

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Having done so, I am upholding Mr R’s complaint – in part. I know Mr R will be disappointed not to receive a full refund of the payments, but I’ll explain why. Did Mr R authorise the disputed payments to M? The relevant law here is the Payment Services Regulations 2017 – these set out what is needed for a payment to be authorised and who has liability for disputed payments in different situations. With some exceptions, the starting point is that the consumer is responsible for authorised payments, and the business is responsible for unauthorised payments. Mr R disputes authorising most the payments to M (apart from those I’ve set out above) so I’ve considered this point first. The PSRs specify that authorisation depends on whether the payment transactions were authenticated correctly – and whether Mr R consented to them. The PSRs go on to specify how consent is given. It must be in the form, and in accordance with the procedure, agreed between Mr R and Barclays. I’ve reviewed the terms of Mr R’s account with Barclays, and they don’t set out exactly how he consents to payments in this scenario. But practically speaking, payments are made through Mr R linking his card to his account with P and completing verification steps if required and then logging into his account with P to instruct the payments. I have seen evidence from P here which shows that it was most likely Mr R (as opposed to an unauthorised third party) that logged into his account with it to send the payments that were made from his Barclays account. His secure details were entered to log onto his account with P when the payments were made, but he’s said he hadn’t shared these with anyone else. His account was accessed from various IP addresses when the disputed payments were made, but these addresses correspond with payments he’s told us he made or hasn’t disputed making. I’ve not seen anything to make me think it’s plausible that someone hacked into Mr R’s device to make the payments. As I’ve mentioned, a payment made to M was discussed in a call with Barclays on 9 April 2023. It looks like the call of 9 April 2023 took place because Barclays had identified some payments as suspicious and it needed to establish that the payments attempted were genuine. During this call, Mr R confirmed that a payment of £162.99 made to M on 8 April 2023 was genuine – but said he’d made the payment to a charity. But it’s clear from the discussion that took place that Mr R was aware that payments had been made to M up to that point. Mr R also had a call with Barclays on 18 April 2023 which appears to have been made after he checked his account balance, and it was lower than he’d expected. During this call, he confirmed that he did recognise the transactions and they were going to M, but she had claimed the payments he was making to her were being cancelled by P, so he’d continued to make them. And during the call Mr R said he didn’t realise all the payments had gone through to M until he checked his Barclays account and saw his balance had substantially decreased. All this makes me think, on the balance of probabilities, Mr R made the payments to M himself. I appreciate it’s possible he was tricked into making them, but this isn’t a consideration under the rules. Overall, I’m satisfied Mr R authorised these payments and so he is liable for them. Should Barclays have recognised a scam risk and intervened?

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I’ve concluded the payments were authorised, so I’ve gone on to consider if Barclays ought to have done anything else to prevent them. When a payment is authorised, Barclays has a duty to act on the payment instruction. But, in some circumstances it should take a closer look at the circumstances of the payment. For example, if it ought to be alert to a fraud risk, because the transaction is unusual, or looks out of character or suspicious. And if so, it should intervene, for example, by contacting the customer directly, before releasing the payment. I’d expect any intervention to be proportionate to the circumstances of the payment. I agree with the Investigator that I wouldn’t have expected Barclays to have found the payments for the hotel or the membership ID card suspicious. They weren’t particularly high in value or out of line with Mr R’s usual pattern of spending so I wouldn’t have expected Barclays to have intervened in them. In relation to the payments made to M, as I’ve explained, the activity on Mr R’s account did look unusual by around 14 April 2023, as repeated payments to M were being made in the same day. And given their frequency and the cumulative value by this point, I do think that Barclays ought to have been concerned about what was happening here, notwithstanding its discussion with Mr R on 9 April 2023 when he confirmed he recognised a payment to M - especially as Mr R had already told it he’d been the victim of a scam when he disputed the payments he thought he’d made to book the hotel. Mr R has mentioned that he thinks Barclays ought to have sent him a text message about each of the payments he made to M, but I don’t think this is a proportionate level of intervention to have expected from it at the time. However, I do think it would have been proportionate for Barclays to have intervened with a phone call to Mr R. I think an intervention call from Barclays would have made a difference here, because when Barclays did speak to Mr R on 18 April 2023, he was honest that he was making the payments to someone he had met online. And I think he would have been honest if an intervention had taken place on 14 April 2023 too. Mr R didn’t make any more payments to M after this call. And I also think that if Barclays had intervened on 14 April 2023, Mr R would have realised earlier that the payments to M weren’t being cancelled as she had told him, and that he was being tricked into making repeated payments to her. So, the scam would likely have been uncovered. However, I must also take into account the principle of contributory negligence in making awards – which is, essentially, whether Mr R should share liability for the loss because his actions fell short of the standard of care that would be expected of a reasonable person in these circumstances. I think it’s reasonable for Mr R to share equal liability with Barclays for the loss here. This is because I think the way in which he met M should reasonably have given him some concerns over whether she genuinely wished to pursue a relationship. It’s also not entirely clear to me what Mr R thought the payments were for so it’s difficult for me to conclude that M gave Mr R a persuasive reason for the payments that shouldn’t reasonably have raised his suspicions about what was happening. And when M said the payments had been cancelled and Mr R should make them again, I think it would have been reasonable for him to check this on his Barclays account before continuing to make repeated payments without doing so. There were enough red flags about the circumstances here that Mr R should have had significant concerns about making the payments. Mr R has told us he’s a vulnerable customer and I’d like to reassure him that I’ve taken this

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into account, and I still think this is a fair and reasonable outcome here. Could Barclays have done more to recover the disputed payments? The Investigator has concluded that any chargeback attempts other than those already raised and refunded by Barclays were unlikely to have been successful here. P has provided evidence that the disputed payments here were made via its “friends and family” option. The card scheme’s chargeback rules treat these types of payments as money transfers rather than the purchase of goods or services, and so the service is carried out in the processing of the payment itself. I understand that the chargebacks raised by Barclays in relation to the hotel booking were successful, but this appears to be due to the technicality that they weren’t defended rather than them being valid chargebacks under the rules. So, I can’t conclude that Barclays ought to have raised chargebacks on any of the payments that remain in dispute as it had no reasonable grounds to do so under the rules. The service Mr R received The Investigator has asked Barclays to pay Mr R £200 in compensation for the service it provided, and Barclays has agreed. Having considered Mr R’s testimony alongside the available evidence, I’m satisfied that there were points were Barclays could have provided a better service. And I think £200 is fair and reasonable compensation in all the circumstances and considering the impact this would have had on Mr R. Putting things right Payments totalling £3,972.74 were made to M from 14 April 2023 onwards. Barclays has offered to refund 50% of these payments (£1,986.37) with 8% simple interest per year from the date of the outcome of Mr R’s original complaint to the date of settlement. But this interest award isn’t in line with our usual approach for compensating a consumer for loss of use of funds, and Barclays hasn’t explained why its offer here departs from our usual approach. I think a fair and reasonable outcome would be for Barclays to pay 8% simple interest per year from the date of the payments to the date of settlement, in line with our usual approach. In addition to the refund of £48.97 refund Barclays has already agreed to make (also with 8% simple interest per year from the date of payment to the date of settlement) plus the £200 in compensation it has also agreed to pay, I think this is a fair and reasonable outcome in all the circumstances. My final decision My final decision is that I uphold this complaint, in part. Barclays Bank UK PLC should put things right by: • Refunding 50% of the payments made to M from 14 April 2023 onwards (£1,986.37) and the disputed CPA payment of £48.97; • Add 8% simple interest per year to the refunded payments from the date of the payments to the date of settlement (less any tax lawfully deductible); and • Pay Mr R £200 in compensation.

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Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr R to accept or reject my decision before 15 April 2026. Helen Sutcliffe Ombudsman

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