Barclays Bank UK PLC · DRN-5948704

The complaint Miss M complains that Barclays Bank UK PLC (Barclays) won’t refund money she lost when she was the victim of a scam. What happened The background to this complaint is well known to both parties, so I won’t repeat everything here. In summary, Miss M fell victim to a task-based job scam in June 2025. She was required to complete tasks in exchange for commission. Miss M saw an advertisement on social media promoting a job opportunity. She began discussing the role with one of the recruiters, (who I will refer to as “the scammer”). She was also added to a group chat with other “employees”. The messages on this group chat made her think this was a real opportunity. She was also paid some commission for completing some work which also made her think the role was legitimate. Miss M advised she was offered extra tasks which involved small investments. As a result, she made payments from her Barclays account to a cryptocurrency provider on the instruction of the scammers. She also made payments from her Barclays account to another account in her name (which I will refer to as “R”). She sent all the funds into the control of the scammers. Miss M was expecting a payment from the scammers, but they told her that her credit score was too low to receive it. She was advised to transfer further funds. She realised she had been scammed shortly after this. Miss M lost around £5,700rom her Barclays account as a result of the scam. Miss M raised a complaint with Barclays. It didn’t think it had done anything wrong by allowing the payments to go through. So, Miss M brought her complaint to our service. Our Investigator looked into the complaint but didn’t uphold it. Our Investigator explained that Barclays had called Miss M as soon as she started making payments towards the scam. It discussed the job role with her several times and highlighted it was a scam and that she shouldn’t send further funds. The Investigator thought that the warnings provided by Barclays were clear and proportionate to the risks it identified. So, in the circumstances he didn’t think it would be fair to hold Barclays responsible for any losses. Miss M didn’t agree, so her complaint has been passed to me for review and 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. I’m sorry Miss M has been the victim of a scam and lost money as a result of it. And I don’t underestimate the impact this has had on her. But while I know this will come as a

-- 1 of 5 --

disappointment to Miss M, for similar reasons as our Investigator, I don’t think Barclays has acted unfairly. I’ll explain why. I’m aware that I’ve summarised this complaint briefly, in less detail than has been provided, and in my own words. No discourtesy is intended by this. Instead, I’ve focussed on what I think is the heart of the matter here. If there’s something I have not mentioned, it isn’t because I have ignored it. I haven’t. I’m satisfied that I don’t need to comment on every individual point or argument to be able to reach what I think is the right outcome. Our rules allow me to do this. This simply reflects the informal nature of our service as a free alternative to the courts. In broad terms, the starting position in law is that a bank is expected to process payments and withdrawals that a customer authorises it to make. It isn’t disputed that Miss M authorised the payments from her Barclays account. Therefore, under the Payment Services Regulations 2017 and the terms of her account, Barclays is expected to process Miss M’s payments, and she is presumed liable for the loss in the first instance. But in some circumstances, it might be appropriate for Barclays to take a closer look at the circumstances of the payments – for example, if it ought to be alert to a fraud risk, because the transactions were unusual, or looked out of character or suspicious. And if so, it should have intervened, for example, by contacting the customer directly, before releasing the payments. This is to help protect customers from the possibility of financial harm from fraud. But I’d expect any intervention to be proportionate to the circumstances of the payment. Barclays recognised that some of the payments Miss M was making were high risk and spoke to her several times to provide her with advice and warnings to try and protect her from being scammed. I’m satisfied that it asked questions to work out the reasons for the payments and probed her based on the responses she provided. I’m also satisfied that the warnings it provided made it clear that it was worried she was falling for a scam. I’ve highlighted some of the key messages Barclays provided Miss M below. Call made after Miss M had sent £280 to the scammers • Miss M provided Barclays the name of the scam company she was dealing with. Barclays confirmed it carried out a search on it and that the results on a well-known review site confirmed it was a scam and that people couldn’t withdrawal their funds. • Barclays highlighted that although she was in a group chat as part of the role, in most cases a lot of these members were scammers who were pretending to be new to the role, rather than genuine employees. • Miss M highlighted she would be completing tasks, such as liking videos and that she would get money for doing this. Barclays asked if she was putting money into a cryptocurrency account and if she had been told she would get a salary to complete the tasks. Miss M confirmed she had. Barclays advised it was seeing this type of scam every day. • Miss M confirmed she had made £70 from the scam and had paid in £280. She highlighted she was in the middle of getting the money back, but she needed to pay £780 before she could. Barclays responded to say this was a confirmed scam. It explained that if she typed ‘job cryptocurrency scam’, or something along those lines, on the internet then she would see exactly what it was referring to. Barclays asked if she would like a bit of time to read into it or if she would like Barclays to explain it again to her, but Miss M advised she understood what it was saying. • Miss M explained that she had already invested £280. Barclays advised she wouldn’t get this money back and that scammers trick you into sending more money in the hope of recovering funds. It reconfirmed that this was “100% a scam”. It advised that

-- 2 of 5 --

if she sent £780 into her cryptocurrency account and onto the scammers then she would lose these funds. • Barclays advised that scammers will often send small amounts to gain a customer’s confidence in the opportunity and show that they could make money out of this, as it had done with her. It advised that scammers know people are desperate to make money and that is how they take advantage of people. • Barclays explained in detail how job scams work. It highlighted that scammers will normally tell you the role is very simple, that you can do it in your own time and that you only need to complete a few tasks. • Miss M explained that if Barclays thought the role was a scam, then she was going to believe it. • It asked if there was an adviser guiding her through the process and whether they were available should she need them. Miss M confirmed she was being guided. Barclays confirmed again that this was a scam and that if she sent money to them, she would lose it. Miss M also had a 35-minute call with Barclays in which the following messages were shared: • Barclays asked if she had been told to pay funds into an account to get funds released or to get a certain percentage back. Miss M confirmed she had. Barclays advised from this point alone it could tell she was being scammed and that she would end up losing her funds. It explained that scammers will give customers small amounts back, such as £50 to entice a customer into sending them funds but the customer will never be able to withdraw the rest of their funds. • It went over examples where customers are asked to pay certain amounts to unlock more profits. It highlighted the amounts requested may be different for her but the request to do so should be considered a scam. • Miss M asked if she should cut her losses at this point. Barclays confirmed she should. • Miss M asked if she would end up losing her funds. Barclays confirmed if she carried on then she could end up losing more. Miss M responded to say, “I can hear what you are saying”, “I can’t argue with that” and “You’re the professional”. Barclays called Miss M again when she made a payment £780. When Miss M described what she was doing it confirmed again that was she was describing was a scam. Miss M explained that she didn’t think she was being scammed. Barclays advised it wasn’t comfortable allowing further payments. It told her to stop sending payments to the scammer or to a cryptocurrency account because she would lose her money. Barclays explained that it didn’t think all investments were scams, but what she had described to it was a known scam. Miss M has raised concerns that the warnings she was provided by Barclays were generic. But I’m satisfied that the warnings provided across the calls were detailed and relevant to her circumstances. As detailed above, Barclays used examples across the calls to help bring the scam to life. In some of the calls it seemed that she understood the risks highlighted and her responses suggested she wouldn’t send any further funds. I’m also satisfied that Barclays did all it could in the calls, especially given the number of times it spoke to her. But Miss M seemed to have been very much under the spell of the scammers from quite an early stage, likely because of the way the scammers were manipulating her. This might explain why she was willing to send further payments, ignore warning signs and explicit advice from Barclays that she was being scammed - and that what she was doing may not be legitimate. She also set up an account with R and set

-- 3 of 5 --

payments through it when she couldn’t send them through Barclays so was determined to send the scam payments. So, with all this in mind, I’m satisfied that Barclays could not reasonably have prevented Miss M’s loss. I’ve considered whether Barclays should have intervened when Miss M made several payments to R and whether this would have made a difference to Miss M’s decision to send the payments, but I don’t think it would have. In one of her calls with Barclays Miss M highlighted that all investments carried risks and she was frustrated that Barclays kept questioning her on the payments. I can also see from the scam chats, and from what Miss M has said, that she was being heavily guided by the scammer on what to do, and even messaged them whilst being on the phone with Barclays. So even if Barclays had gone further in its interactions with Miss M, such as blocking subsequent payments, it’s unlikely this would have made a difference as Miss M was determined to continue with the investment. I’m persuaded that she would have found another way to make the payments, such as sending them through another business or taken advice from the scammers on how to get around any blocks placed on her payments. So, in summary, I’m satisfied that Barclays gave substantial and tailored warnings to Miss M about what she was doing, and Miss M continued regardless of these warnings. And so - I don’t hold Barclays liable to refund her losses. I have noted the comments Miss M has made regarding Barclays’s obligations following the introduction of the Consumer Duty. But I’m not persuaded this changes the outcome here. While Barclays is expected to avoid causing her foreseeable harm, I’m not persuaded its actions were the main cause of the harm she has said she suffered. And as explained above it intervened appropriately on more than one occasion to help prevent Miss M’s losses. Miss M has described herself as vulnerable. She’s shared details around these vulnerabilities with our service. Miss M believes that Barclays have a responsibility to identify potential vulnerabilities and that it should have taken them into account. While Barclays should be on the lookout for customer vulnerabilities, it can only act on those it was aware of or that were apparent when Miss M made the transfers. Here it wasn’t made aware of any vulnerabilities, and I can’t say the calls she had with it should have highlighted any concerns that she might need additional support. And so, I can’t say that Barclays acted unfairly in these circumstances. I have also considered whether Barclays could have done anything to recover Miss M’s funds. One debit card payment for £280 was refunded, but the rest of the payments were sent to accounts in Miss M’s name, and then on to the scam, so it wouldn’t have been possible for Barclays to recover them. I’m sorry to hear Miss M suffered a financial loss as a result of what happened and the impact the loss has had on her. But it would only be fair for me to direct Barclays to refund her loss if I thought it was responsible – and I’m not persuaded that this was the case. For the above reasons, I think Barclays has acted fairly and so I’m not going to tell it to do anything further. My final decision I don’t think Barclays Bank UK PLC needs to do anything to settle the complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Miss M to accept or reject my decision before 27 April 2026.

-- 4 of 5 --

Aleya Khanom Ombudsman

-- 5 of 5 --