Nationwide Building Society · DRN-6124352

The complaint Mr H complains that Nationwide Building Society did not return £700 to his account following a fraud report from a third party. What happened Both parties are aware of the circumstances of the complaint, so I won’t repeat them again in detail here. In summary, Mr H received a £700 deposit from a prospective tenant who was looking to rent some storage space from him. However, following a disagreement over the terms of the contract, the tenant no longer wished to rent the space and initially asked for a full refund of the deposit, then agreed to a partial refund of £350 before communication between the parties fully broke down. The third-party raised a scam claim against Mr H and Nationwide debited the £700 from his account. Following a review, Nationwide did not agree to reimburse Mr H with the £700. Mr H referred the complaint to our service and our Investigator looked into it. Upon reviewing the correspondence between both parties, as well as the contract, our Investigator felt this was a civil dispute and did not agree that Mr H set out to defraud the third party from the outset. As a result, they recommended that Nationwide reimburse the full £700, along with 8% simple interest for Mr H being deprived of the use of the funds. They also recommended £100 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by Nationwide’s decision not to reimburse the £700. Nationwide initially disagreed with the findings but later agreed that this was a civil dispute and not a scam. However, they felt it was fair to reimburse just £350, as this is what Mr H and the third party agreed would be a fair partial refund in their communication. They also agreed to pay the 8% simple interest and the £100 compensation. Mr H did not agree with this offer and instead felt the full £700 should be repaid. The complaint was passed to me and I set out my reasoning informally to Nationwide as to why I felt the full £700 should be returned to Mr H. Nationwide continued to disagree and still felt a partial reimbursement of £350 was fair, and questioned whether paying 8% simple interest or £100 compensation was fair considering they felt they had followed their internal process correctly. As no informal resolution could be reached, I will now consider the complaint to reach 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. Nationwide now agrees that this is a civil dispute, and it should be noted that I also agree with this finding. In short, I think the evidence suggests Mr H came to the situation with clean hands. The advert for the property appeared to be legitimate enough that individuals came to view the property, and the third party then agreed to rent out two separate lots next to each other. So, it appears the property was as described. Mr H’s partner who was handling the agreement then spend a considerable amount of time talking with the sender about the set up and agreed a price for the combined lots.

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A lease agreement was then created with the relevant details, but when this was sent to the sender they disagreed with parts of its contents. It is clear to me this is where the breakdown in the relationship happened, and from here on a civil dispute between Mr H and the sender began. The disagreement continued about what how much of the £700 should be returned to the third party as Mr H had incurred costs and lost time when he created the lease agreement, removed the advertisement online and the moved two cars that were in the property. The conversation ended with the sender becoming abusive to Mr H’s partner. Overall, I think the payment purposes both Mr H and the sender had aligned. They both intended for the funds to be used to pay to secure the properties. And nothing I have seen indicates to me that Mr H did not intend to provide the property or intended to use the funds for fraudulent purposes instead. He does not have a history of receiving fraudulent funds and I note the funds were not immediately removed from the account as you would not expect in a goods purchasing scam. As all parties are now in agreement that this is a civil dispute, the only thing left to decide is what redress should be paid to Mr H. Nationwide has indicated that they feel a partial reimbursement of £350 would be fair, as this is what Mr H and the third party agreed in their conversation. I’ve considered this, but I don’t think this is a fair settlement to the complaint. As it has been agreed that this is a civil dispute between Mr H and the third party, I do not think it is up to Nationwide to decide how to disperse the funds between them. Nationwide’s terms and conditions state it can remove funds from Mr H’s account if it has been paid in by mistake. But I can’t see that this has happened in this situation. So, I do not think Nationwide had a mandate to remove the funds and therefore the only fair redress would be for it to fully refund the £700 that was removed from Mr H’s account, and it is then up to him to decide what to do with those funds. Nationwide initially said they agreed to pay the 8% simple interest on the amount as well as £100 compensation, but it has since questioned whether this is fair. In short, I agree that it would be fair to apply both of these factors to the redress. Firstly, as Nationwide has now agreed this is a civil dispute and has done so with no additional information being provided by Mr H, I think they could reasonably have reached this outcome when the claim was first raised by the third-party. As a result of their decision not to reimburse Mr H, which I feel was incorrect, Mr H has missed out on the use of these funds. And this decision has undoubtedly caused him distress and inconvenience which I feel the £100 would fairly compensate him for. Putting things right I direct Nationwide to reimburse the £700 as well as 8% simple interest from the date it debited the amount from Mr H’s account to the date of settlement, along with £100 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused. My final decision I uphold Mr H’s complaint against Nationwide Building Society and direct them to pay the redress outlined above to remedy the complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr H to accept or reject my decision before 28 April 2026. Rebecca Norris Ombudsman

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