DRN-6275737

The complaint Mr V complains that Santander UK Plc (‘Santander’) did not fully reimburse the funds he says he lost to a scam. What happened Mr V says he was introduced to an investment opportunity with a company I’ll call C, after seeing an advert on social media. Mr V says he checked reviews of C online, reviewed C’s professional looking website and watched videos about C. Mr V says he attended online video meetings and was part of a group on a well-known messaging service where other supposed investors would share their experiences and positive information about C. Mr V says he had access to a portal where he could see his deposits and real time trades. Due to the time passed, Mr V no longer has any evidence of the conversations that took place with C, or about C with other people. Mr V has also not been able to provide any evidence of the information he saw about C or anything he may have been sent by C. Mr V says he made the payments below to his own cryptocurrency wallet that he opened with a legitimate cryptocurrency platform. Mr V says that once the payments were received into his wallet, he brought cryptocurrency which he then sent to C. Payment Date Payee Payment Type Amount 1 1 November 2021 Mr V’s crypto wallet Faster payment £1,000 2 2 November 2021 Mr V’s crypto wallet Card payment £450 3 3 November 2021 Mr V’s crypto wallet Card payment £404.76 4 7 November 2021 Mr V’s crypto wallet Faster payment £5,000 5 10 November 2021 Mr V’s crypto wallet Faster payment £5,000 6 12 November 2021 Mr V’s crypto wallet Faster payment £5,000 Total payments £16,854.76 In March 2025 Mr V instructed a professional representative to complain to Santander on his behalf. He said he was the victim of a scam and that Santander should reimburse his loss because it should have done more to protect him at the time of the payments and could have uncovered the scam. Santander said that because the payments were made to Mr V’s own account before being moved on, it was unable to refund them. Santander advised Mr V to get in touch with the institution the funds were sent to and raise a claim there. Mr V didn’t agree with Santander’s outcome and asked our service to investigate his complaint. One of our Investigators reviewed the complaint and didn’t recommend that it be upheld. In short, our Investigator concluded that there wasn’t enough evidence linking the payments above to a scam. As such, she couldn’t recommend Santander refund Mr V.

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Mr V, through his professional representative, didn’t agree with the investigator’s findings. In summary, Mr V’s professional representative said the lack of evidence of conversations and other records doesn’t negate that a scam occurred and his testimony and evidence of cryptocurrency transactions provided was enough to say that on the balance of probabilities Mr V had been the victim of a scam. Mr V did provide some further evidence, including a screenshot that appears to be from C’s website, and screenshots of his cryptocurrency wallet showing the incoming credits, purchase of cryptocurrency and subsequent withdrawals. But the new evidence didn’t change the Investigator’s opinion because the screenshots didn’t link the payments Mr V made from his Santander account to an investment with C. Because the complaint couldn’t be resolved informally, it has been passed to me to make a 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. I have summarised this complaint in less detail than the parties involved. I want to stress that no discourtesy is intended by this. If there is a submission I have not addressed, it is not because I have ignored the point. It is simply because my findings focus on what I consider to be the central issues in 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. 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 and the surrounding circumstances. Mr V says he has been the victim of a scam and that Santander should reimburse him as it should have noticed that payment four was out of character, it should have intervened and if it had it could have identified that Mr V was falling victim to a scam. I have taken all of the circumstances and evidence into account when considering what is a fair and reasonable outcome. For broadly the same reasons as the Investigator, I’m not persuaded that Mr V has sufficiently evidenced that, on balance, the payments he has disputed with Santander relate to an investment, and subsequent loss, with C. It follows that Santander can’t have failed in its responsibilities. I’ll explain why. The payments in dispute were made to Mr V’s own cryptocurrency wallet that he opened and had control of, and not to C directly. Despite Mr V’s professional representative saying Mr V has given a consistent and detailed account of what happened, I haven’t seen any evidence to persuade me it’s more likely than not that the payments he’s disputed ended up being sent to C and lost because of a scam. Mr V’s professional representative has confirmed Mr V deleted all correspondence he had with C or with others about C because of the effect the loss had on him. I’m sorry that what happened has caused Mr V such distress and I acknowledge that’s why he no longer has information that could support his complaint. Mr V’s professional representative has said his testimony should be trusted and should be sufficient to say that on balance he’s been the victim of a scam. I accept that written evidence isn’t always obtainable, and testimony is often the best available evidence, and I have of course considered what he’s said. But there

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is nothing available to me to evidence Mr V’s involvement with C, what he was told or shown about the investment or how to make payments and when. Mr V has been able to provide a screenshot that appears to show him logged into C’s website, but it only shows instructions on how to set up two factor authentication. While the screenshot does link him to C in some way, it doesn’t show a date, it doesn’t show any information about credits into the account, an account balance, any information about the investment or any other information that shows if or when Mr V made any payments to C. Mr V was also able to provide screenshots and a spreadsheet of transactions which I understand show the activity of his cryptocurrency wallet. But this only shows that the payments he made from his Santander account were received into his cryptocurrency wallet, that he then purchased cryptocurrency and subsequently sent it to other wallets. It doesn’t evidence who received the cryptocurrency and importantly doesn’t show that the cryptocurrency was sent to C or anyone related to C. The spreadsheet Mr V provided also shows similar transactions occurring in 2022 and 2023 that Mr V hasn’t said relate to C. Importantly, the available information doesn’t evidence a clear link between the payments Mr V made from his Santander account and payments to C. As there is no clear evidence linking the payments Mr V made from his Santander account to payments being made to C, I can’t fairly conclude that, on balance, it’s most likely that Mr V made payments to C and suffered a loss because of a scam. I have reviewed information received from Santander, including statements and its understanding of the circumstances surrounding the payments. But none of the information I’ve been provided by either Mr V or Santander shows that any of the payments in dispute were linked to an investment with C. I’m not reaching the conclusion that Mr V didn’t invest with C, because the evidence does suggest he may have had some sort of involvement with C. But crucially, none of the evidence that has been provided to me convincingly shows that the payments Mr V is disputing here were payments made towards an investment with C. I’m sorry for the situation Mr V has found himself in, and I recognise he has lost a lot of money. I also appreciate that he was going through a difficult time when he made the payments. But for the reasons provided above, I do not find that Santander is at fault here. It follows that Santander isn’t required to take any further action. Having considered everything very carefully, in my judgment, this is a fair and reasonable outcome in the circumstances of this complaint. My final decision For the reasons set out above, I do not uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr V to accept or reject my decision before 14 May 2026. Mike Southgate Ombudsman

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