Lloyds Bank PLC · DRN-6271870

The complaint Mr and Mrs C complain that Lloyds Bank PLC won’t refund the money they lost when they were the victims of a scam. What happened In January 2025, Mr and Mrs C were looking to buy tickets for a concert and saw a message on social media from someone who said they had tickets to sell. As their son knew the seller, Mr and Mrs C thought they were genuine and so contacted them and agreed to buy the tickets. And they then made a payment of £620 from their Lloyds account to account details the seller gave them, to pay for them. After making the payment, Mr and Mrs C became suspicious when the seller didn’t respond to their messages. And their son then spoke to who they thought was the seller, who confirmed their social media account had been hacked and the sale of tickets wasn’t genuine. Mr and Mrs C then reported the payment they had made to Lloyds. Lloyds investigated and paid Mr and Mrs C £75 as compensation for incorrect information and poor service it provided them. But it said the payment wasn’t covered by the relevant reimbursement rules and it didn’t think it had made an error in allowing it to be made, so it didn’t agree to refund it. Mr and Mrs C weren’t satisfied with Lloyds’ response, so referred a complaint to our service. One of our investigators looked at the complaint. They didn’t think the relevant reimbursement rules applied here, and didn’t think Lloyds should have been expected to prevent Mr and Mrs C’s loss. They also thought the compensation Lloyds had offered was fair. So they didn’t think Lloyds should have to do anything further. Mr and Mrs C disagreed with our investigator, so the complaint has been passed to me. 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 broad terms, the starting position in law is that a firm is expected to process payments and withdrawals that a customer authorises, in accordance with the Payment Services Regulations and the terms and conditions of the customer’s account. However, where the customer made the payment as a consequence of the actions of a fraudster, it may sometimes be fair and reasonable for the bank to reimburse the customer even though they authorised the payment. In 2024, the Payment Systems Regulator required the Faster Payments Scheme operator to introduce rules to require firms to reimburse customers who had been the victim of authorised push payment scams. These Reimbursement Rules came into force on 7 October 2024 and require firms to reimburse consumers who are the victims of scams in certain circumstances. However, the rules only apply to payments made to an account held in the UK.

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The payment Mr and Mrs C made here was sent to an account held in Gibraltar. And Gibraltar, while being a British Overseas Territory, is not part of the UK. So the Reimbursement Rules don't apply to the payment they made, and I can’t require Lloyds to apply them or to reimburse them as a result. While the Reimbursement Rules don’t apply here, the regulatory landscape, along with good industry practice, sets out requirements for firms to protect their customers from fraud and financial harm. So, in line with this, I think Lloyds should have been monitoring accounts, had systems in place to look out for unusual transactions and, in some circumstances, have carried out additional checks before processing payments. But the payment Mr and Mrs C made here wasn’t for a particularly large amount, or for an amount I would have expected Lloyds to identify as suspicious based on its size alone. Mr and Ms C had made a number of payments out of their account for similar and larger amounts in the months before this payment. And the payment didn’t use up a suspicious proportion of the available balance in their account or leave the balance of the account at a particularly unusual level. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable that Lloyds didn’t identify that they could be at risk of financial harm as a result of this payment, and didn’t carry out any further checks or take any further action before allowing it to leave their account. I also don’t think it’s likely anything I would reasonably have expected Lloyds to have done would have led to any of Mr and Mrs C’s funds being recovered from the account they were sent to, or that there are any other grounds on which I would expect Lloyds to refund Mr and Mrs C here. Mr and Mrs C also complained that Lloyds gave them incorrect information about their claim and told them they would be refunded when they first reported the payment. And Lloyds has accepted that it incorrectly told Mr and Mrs C this, and that it failed to respond to their claim within a reasonable period of time. From what I’ve seen, I think the £75 Lloyds has paid by way of an apology is fair and reasonable compensation for the distress and inconvenience this poor service caused to Mr and Mrs C. I appreciate Mr and Mrs C feel Lloyds should be required to refund them because it told them they would be refunded. But, where a business has made an error, our service usually looks to put the consumer back in the position they would have been in had the error not been made. And, if Lloyds hadn’t made an error here, Mr and Mrs C would initially have been told they may not be refunded and would then have been told they wouldn’t be refunded sooner – they still wouldn’t have received a refund. So I don’t think it would be fair to require Lloyds to refund the payment they made here as a result of the errors it made. And, as I explained above, I think the compensation Lloyds has paid as an apology for its errors is fair. I sympathise with the position Mr and Mrs C have found themselves in and I recognise that they have been the victims of a cruel scam. But I can only look at Lloyds’ responsibilities here and, for the reasons I’ve explained above, I don’t think there are any grounds on which it would be fair to require it to refund the payment they made here. My final decision For the reasons set out above, I don’t uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr and Mrs C to

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accept or reject my decision before 15 May 2026. Alan Millward Ombudsman

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