Our client ‘Matthew’ was swindled into transferring money to a bogus company offering work visa sponsorships.
In October 2024, Matthew was scrolling through Facebook when he stumbled upon an advert for a position as a care assistant. He responded to the advert and was contacted shortly after the director of the company who informed him that he would be eligible for a work visa sponsorship through them.
Despite the ‘job offer’ meaning Matthew would have to relocate to Scotland, he thought the benefits of a base salary of £14.50 per hour, a 3% bonus on his salary and 20 days annual leave would make the move worth it.
To secure his work visa sponsorship, Matthew was told that he would need to make a payment of £5,263 to complete all the necessary paperwork. Unable to pay that amount in full, he asked if he could make three monthly payment instalments of £1,750, a request the company agreed with.
Matthew’s first payment didn’t reach the company due to his bank stopping such a large amount going through. However, the company advised him to make smaller payments to ensure that they went through without any issues. A few weeks after making most of the payments, totalling £4,250, Matthew requested for the certificate of sponsorship letter, a request that the company refused.
In January 2025, Matthew contacted the company again to ask about the progress of his visa application after hearing no update, despite promises being made to him. They responded stating that there was a significant backlog at the Home Office and that, although it was outside of their control, Matthew could pay a further £1,000 for the Super Priority Service, which meant that a decision would be made within a week. Without any certification of sponsorship letter being sent and another request made for another payment, alarm bells began to ring.
After refusing to send any more money, Matthew stopped hearing from the company altogether. His last payment was made at the end of December 2024 and to date he has still not received any further communication or his promised visa.
Unsure of what to do next, Matthew turned to Baring Law’s bank fraud department for help in claiming back his lost funds.
Our team conducted a thorough investigation and noticed that, despite the block on the first payment to the company, his bank did not put any further preventative measures in place and Matthew was able to continue sending smaller amounts.
It was raised that the transactions, some of which were made multiple times a day, bore the hallmarks of a scam. This was primarily put down to the unusual nature of the transactions which were not aligned with Matthew’s usual spending habits and were all authorised by him in a brief period. As a result, we argued his bank should have identified and/or had relevant processes and procedures in place to alert them to the unusual nature and frequency of the transactions.
Subsequently, our team put forward that the bank was responsible for Matthew’s losses as they failed to exercise reasonable skill and care, as is expected of a regulated bank. Furthermore, based on Matthew’s spending habits, had there been adequate checks and due diligence undertaken, this would have resulted in reasonable grounds for the bank to intervene.
However, due to their lack of intervention and fraudulent prevention measures, it is considered that the transactions were actioned with ‘shut eyes.’
Matthew’s bank acknowledged that they could have done more to prevent the fraudulent activity from taking place and decided to uphold the complaint.
Matthew was reimbursed his full financial loss of £4,250* and 8% interest on top, making his total reimbursement £4,296.14. However, while Matthew was able to recoup his losses, he vowed, in the future, to be more vigilant when coming across adverts on social media that appear to good to be true.
*Amount awarded is before fees and disbursements.
