S3E2: When Banks Fail Us: My Fight Against Scams
What would you do if you were scammed? Do you know what kinds of things the banks look for when evaluating if you should get your money back?
Katie Morley is consumer champion for the Telegraph. She’s won back around 10 million pounds for scam and fraud victims including those who should have been protected but weren’t.
What you should remember from this episode
• 27.7 million adults are vulnerable according to the FCA.
• Anyone can be vulnerable at different times of life, e.g. if you’ve just had a baby, a bereavement, a divorce etc.
• Financial institutions need to do more to protect vulnerable people than most organisations. This is because of regulations.
• There’s a lot of people who think they are too clever to be scammed, but that confidence is a weakness that can make you more susceptible, says Katie.
• If a customer gets scammed, it’s up to the customer to complain in ‘the right way’ to the financial institution - e.g. explaining they’re on medication. But most people don’t know the right way to complain (understandably).
• Katie says there are criteria but decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.
• A key question that financial institutions consider is if something in a customer’s life would impact the customer’s judgment and decision-making (a vulnerability).
• Katie says NatWest are one of the toughest bank to get money out of.
• If she can’t get money out of a financial institution, she recommends the customer goes to the financial ombudsman.
• If you’ve been scammed and you want to complain consider:
What you did
What the financial institution did, e.g. did they give you any warning before transferring out your life savings
Are you vulnerable
Are there other factors that justify the decision(s) you made
• Katie says you should raise an official complaint under the contingency reimbursement model.
• Always try by complaining directly with the financial institution first (you have to actually). You normally have 6 years to do this.
• Then if you fail with the financial institution, check out the financial ombudsman - you have to do it within 6 months after the final decision from the financial institution.
• Every company will have their own complaints process. You should raise an official complaint - say it like that too (an official complaint) and you will get heard.
• Also consider how you can raise it with the right people, e.g. if you’re getting nowhere, you can try copying in the CEO, or perhaps someone else who’s senior (by Googling email addresses).• Or can you go wider with your complaint, e.g. by posting on social media - you can copy in people who are relevant to your issue like Katie or Martin Lewis.
• Katie says you can use her name, e.g. you can threaten to get her involved or she says you can copy her email into your complaint email (not initially but if you’re not getting anywhere). You can find her on kminvestigates@telegraph.co.uk.
• There’s a lot of credit card fraud but generally credit card companies are good at returning the money.
• Bank transfer fraud is when people send transfers to criminals pretending to be someone else, e.g. they might pretend to be your bank’s fraud department and tell you to move your money into a safe account.
• Phishing scams are rife. They’re designed to get your info and then they target you through another scam at a later date, e.g. you’ll get a text supposedly from Royal Mail asking you pay £1 to redeliver a package. That small transaction can give them enough details so they can scam you later for a much bigger amount.
• If it looks too good to be true it probably is.
• Be wary of where you send personal details. Of course the more sensitive the data, the more careful you need to be when sharing it.
• And likewise be careful giving out a lot of info at once.
• If in doubt, call your bank, but if you Google their phone number, check the URL to make sure you’re getting the bank’s legitimate details - rather than a scammer pretending to be the bank, e.g. through an advert.
