Our client ‘Joseph’ enlisted the help of Barings Law after he fell victim to a scammer and lost a lump sum of £16,000.
In January 2023, someone whom Joseph believed to be his friend approached him after he had recently come into a significant amount of inheritance funds following the death of his father and grandmother. During his grieving period, they asked him to borrow £8,000. This money was for a house deposit to escape their abusive partner. Joseph agreed and the pair came to an arrangement that the friend, ‘Matthew’, would make regular repayments.
After paying back £50, Matthew asked Joseph for another £8,000. He claimed his stocks had hit £30,000, but had to deposit an unspecified amount to release the funds. He said if he could get the money, he could pay Joseph back in full. Joseph questioned Matthew’s motives, but after some convincing, he decided that he couldn’t be scamming him as he was his friend, so sent over the requested money.
Shortly after, Joseph started to ask Matthew for his money back, but Matthew responded with defensive text messages that tried to avoid the topic of repayment. Joseph reached out to his friend Kayleigh, who was meant to start a business with Matthew. After speaking back and forth, he found that his money was being used for things such as a car, and in fact he had never left the home he was so desperate to leave. Joseph reached back out to Matthew with this information and now received abusive messages, during which he was told he would never see his money again.
The stress of the situation meant that Joseph ended up in hospital with high blood pressure; this prompted him to decide to take the matter further. He contacted his bank, and they told him that he had sent the money of his own free will and would not be entitled to compensation. However, he argued that they did not send him any warnings when he transferred such a huge sum of money or put any preventative measures in place to warn him of scammers.
The decision from the bank left a sour taste in Joseph’s mouth, who then decided to take legal action against Matthew. He contacted several law firms, but none would offer services without upfront payment. He couldn’t afford this since it was all in Matthew’s pocket. He then stumbled across Barings Law and noticed our services have no upfront fee, and it was all on a no-win no-fee basis.
Our bank fraud department reached out to his bank. They said the bank failed in their duty of care to Joseph. They did not spot his unusual transaction involving a large sum of money, which was not typical for his spending habits. They also mentioned that they didn’t give Joseph any security codes or account limits. They had promised these when he opened the account.
The bank took a considerable amount of time to respond to our team and advised us that we could go to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS); but knowing this could take longer to resolve, our team liaised with the bank by providing more evidence to avoid going to the FOS. Shortly after, the bank made an offer of £15,366.08*, with an original base rate of £13,705. An extra £1,661.01, which was 8% interest for the time Joseph did not have his money, added to the remaining amount.
The bank decided on the settlement because it didn’t mark Joseph’s payments as ‘unusual.’ It should have done so based on his normal spending habits. They also did not intervene on the second occasion, which they admit they should have done if it was a large payment going to the same person. The settlement of £15,366.08* has come as a relief to Joseph, and he now feels he can put the ordeal behind him.
* Amount awarded is before fees and disbursements.
