Relief for HSBC customer scammed out of £14k

Mrs C, who is in her 60s, had also recently separated from her husband of 37 years, and told FTAdviser she had been trying to cope with carrying out social work over the past 12 months.

The customer, who has worked as a children's protection officer throughout the Covid-19 crisis, said her stressful role, combined with her self-confessed lack of technological savvy and the breakdown of her marriage, meant she was in an exceptionally vulnerable position.

She had been away with work and had been expecting a parcel, so when she saw a text purporting to be from a courier firm, she clicked on the link.

Within a few hours, a man pretending to be from the bank called her and said: "Mrs C, that text was a scam, the scammers have used this as a hook. While they were pretending to be protecting me, they were actually scamming me."

So when an authoritative, knowledgeable and trustworthy-sounding person called her out of the blue, claiming he had flagged suspicious activity on her account, her first instinct was to believe him.

Scammers are unscrupulous criminals who use a range of sophisticated techniques to obtain the necessary information from their victims.HSBC

She said: "Even down to the hold music they used; everything seemed so detailed and the fact he arranged someone to call me later sounded so plausible.

"The worst of it was, throughout the phone call, by way of increasing the urgency and the panic in me, they kept referring to 'direct debit' notifications they were getting.

"I was so shocked. I couldn't stop crying for days about it."

But when she spoke with her son shortly after the call, he realised his mother had fallen victim to an authorised push payment scam - similar to the ones FTAdviser has written about over the past 12 months as part of our focus on financial vulnerability.

She contacted HSBC on March 31 and reported the fraud, but was concerned she would not get her money back.

FTAdviser has reported on cases where banks have only refunded half or next to nothing of their customers' money after they fell victim to similar APP scams.  

Indeed, as banks have been putting increased warnings in place when people make transfers, there is an onus on the consumer to take responsibility for verifying the identity of callers, and not to proceed with a transfer.

Her son contacted FTAdviser, and we directed him towards template complaint letters from Which, and advised him to set out the full details to HSBC, to help the bank make a full investigation and to assess her case with full understanding of her vulnerabilities.

Everything seemed so detailed and the fact he arranged someone to call me later sounded so plausible.Mrs C

On April 18, her son contacted FTAdviser to state the bank had agreed to reimburse his mother with the full £14,107 that had been stolen from her account.

Mrs C said: "On day 15 since the fraud, I was called and interviewed by HSBC's fraud team. He was very empathetic, and intimated that I might get my money back, but said I might not get anything back til the end of the month."

A spokesperson for HSBC commented: “Protecting customers from fraud is an absolute priority for us, and we are sorry to hear that Mrs C has fallen victim to an authorised push payment scam.

"Scammers are unscrupulous criminals who use a range of sophisticated techniques to obtain the necessary information from their victims."

HSBC said it reviews every scam case independently, in line with the guidance set out in the CRM code to determine whether a customer has done enough to protect themselves from being a victim.

The spokesperson said: "After reviewing this case, we feel that Mrs C had taken appropriate actions to protect herself and therefore has been refunded in full.

“We encourage people to learn more about the different forms that financial scams can take and how they can protect themselves by visiting our security centre at HSBC.co.uk, or the industry-wide Take Five To Stop Fraud campaign website.”

simoney.kyriakou@ft.com