DRN-6177709

The complaint Mr A is unhappy Nationwide Building Society (“Nationwide”) hasn’t offered him a refund after he complained about being the victim of an investment scam. What happened Mr A says he was introduced to a cryptocurrency investment opportunity by a trusted friend. Mr A was told to take out loans to facilitate the investment and the loans would be legally paid off by a connected person who owned a loan company. It’s unclear how the investment was supposed to work but there appears to have been an agreement that any returns on the investment would then be shared. Mr A says his friend was able to show him that he had previously taken out a loan and it had been paid off as agreed. Mr A says he took out the loans as agreed and the funds received were then transferred to the scammer; after initially being transferred to another account he held in his own name and his brother’s account. Mr A didn’t receive any of the returns he was promised. Mr A contacted Nationwide, via a professional representative, to say he’d been the victim of a scam and to ask for a refund of the amount lost. Mr A said his loss amounted to just over £30,000. Nationwide declined to offer Mr A a refund. It said it had contacted him on numerous occasions to obtain some further information about what had happened so it could fully consider his claim. Nationwide said it hadn’t been able to get in touch with Mr A so it hadn’t progressed his claim further. Mr A brought his complaint to this service and one of our investigators looked into things. The investigator said they didn’t think Mr A had provided enough evidence to satisfy them that he’d been the victim of a scam so they didn’t think it would be reasonable to ask Nationwide to offer him a refund of the amount lost now. Unhappy with the outcome reached by the investigator, Mr A asked for his case to be reviewed by an ombudsman and so the complaint was passed to me to decide. 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. In deciding what’s fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of a complaint, I’m required to take into account relevant: law and regulations; regulators’ rules, guidance and standards; codes of practice; and, where appropriate, what I consider to be good industry practice at the time.

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Where evidence is unclear or in dispute, I reach my findings on the balance of probabilities – in other words on what I consider most likely to have happened based on the evidence available to me and the surrounding circumstances. Having reviewed the very limited evidence made available to me in this case, I agree with the outcome reached by our investigator, for largely the same reasons. So, I won’t be upholding this complaint. I’ll explain why in more detail below: Mr A says he’s been the victim of a scam and Nationwide should have intervened and stopped the payments he says were sent to the scammer. However, in order for me to reach this conclusion, I’d first need to be satisfied that Mr A had been the victim of a scam. And having considered all of the evidence available, I can’t fairly conclude that Mr A has been the victim of a scam in relation to these payments. As I’m not persuaded that a scam / fraud has taken place, it would be unreasonable for me to now reach the conclusion that Nationwide failed in its responsibilities to protect him from financial harm from fraud. As part of their investigation into Mr A’s complaint, our investigator asked Mr A to provide this service with: • evidence that supported he was speaking with someone about a cryptocurrency investment and / or taking out loans to facilitate this investment. • information in relation to the loans he was asked to take out. • any other information that supported Mr A’s testimony as to what had happened to him. Mr A provided this service with a small number of screenshots that appeared to show a conversation with someone about loan funds entering his account and being sent on. He also provided account statements to show he had sent funds on to the account details shown in the screenshots provided. Mr A wasn’t able to provide any further information. And because of this, I have no evidence to connect any of the funds that entered Mr A’s account to a supposed cryptocurrency investment. In fact, I haven’t been provided with any evidence that supports Mr A believed he was entering into a cryptocurrency investment or any evidence of what had been discussed and agreed prior to the loans being taken out and subsequently sent on. The screenshots provided are limited and it is unclear what agreement is in place between Mr A and the person he is speaking with. Generally, in cases such as this, I would expect to see some evidence of the conversations that took place to arrange the investment and what had been agreed. In this case, Mr A hasn’t been able to provide such evidence, nor has he been able to demonstrate through contemporaneous evidence that any of the payments that left his Nationwide account were connected to an investment or that he was asked to take out loans by a third-party. I’m also not persuaded that Mr A could’ve legitimately thought he could take out substantial loans to facilitate an investment that he wouldn’t ever have to repay. So, taking into account the very limited information I have available to me, there simply isn’t enough for me to fairly and reasonably say Mr A has been the victim of a scam or that Nationwide should refund him now. As Nationwide didn’t need to consider this as a scam then it didn’t need to go on to contact the recipient account provider(s). It didn’t need to intervene with the payments either - Mr A was making payments to an account in his own name and to his brothers account which had been a payee set up on the account since 2022.

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I’ve seen no other reason to recommend that Nationwide offer Mr A a refund of the amount he says he lost now. I’m satisfied that Nationwide did what it could in order to correctly consider Mr A’s claim and I won’t be recommending it do anything further. My final decision My final decision is that I do not uphold this complaint about Nationwide Building Society. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr A to accept or reject my decision before 14 May 2026. Emly Hanley Hayes Ombudsman

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