NatWest revealed as worst bank for scam claims as 70% of valid complaints to banks rejected

NATWEST is the worst bank for dealing with scam claims, while lenders are continuing to wrongly reject up to 70% of fraud complaints. The damning figures have been revealed as part of research shared exclusively with The Sun by complaints body the Financial Ombudsman Service. It found NatWest is the worst for dealing with scam […]

NATWEST is the worst bank for dealing with scam claims, while lenders are continuing to wrongly reject up to 70% of fraud complaints.

The damning figures have been revealed as part of research shared exclusively with The Sun by complaints body the Financial Ombudsman Service.

It found NatWest is the worst for dealing with scam complaints, with the Ombudsman overturning 69% of its decisions in the year to May 28, 2019.

The Sun has previously spoken to gardener David Hunt who lost nearly £10,000 when scammers pretended to be from HMRC – and his bank NatWest refused to payout.

Meanwhile, grandmother Jo Wilson, had her £40,000 life savings stolen by scammers posing as staff from NatWest, which also wouldn’t give her a refund.

RBS, which is part of the NatWest Banking Group, is the next worst offender, also wrongly rejecting 69% of complaints adjudicated on by the Ombudsman over the same period.

Santander takes third place, with six in ten fraud complaints overturned (63%).

Meanwhile, HSBC, Nationwide, Barclays, and TSB each had more than half of scam complaints upheld against them in consumers’ favours.

The data looks at complaints where decisions were made by the Ombudsman in the year before and after a code of practice came into force to better deal with bank transfer scams.

Of course, as victims have up to six months from being rejected by their bank to bring claims it could be complaints from before the code took force were adjudicated on after it came into affect.

The NatWest Group, for example, points out that it was clearing a backlog of older complaints during this period.

Other types of fraud are also covered by the Ombudsman’s data, including chip and PIN disputes, cash not dispensed from ATMs, and ID thefts.

Overall, the uphold rate on complaints about the ten banks with the most fraud complaints fell from 72% in the year immediately before the code to 52% the year after it took effect.

But trade body UK Finance agrees more needs to be done to help reimburse victims of fraud.

£456million lost to bank transfer fraud

The Authorised Push Payment (APP) code, came into force on May 28, 2019 and promises members will reimburse victims of this particular type of bank transfer scam.

But not all banks have signed up to it; Monzo, for example, isn’t a member while TSB instead created its own promise to refund fraud victims.

UK Finance says £456million was lost to APP fraud in 2019 with victims getting £41million back over the same period.

The trade body adds that banks prevented more than £1.8billion of unauthorised fraud last year.

Katy Worobec, managing director of economic crime at UK Finance, said: “The Authorised Push Payments Scams Code has established stronger customer protection standards and more than doubled the proportion of losses being refunded.” 

But she added: “We agree that a voluntary agreement alone is not enough, and new legislation is required to address issues of liability and reimbursement.” 

A NatWest Group spokesperson said: “We are a founding member of the reimbursement code and always do everything we can to help our customers get their money back.”

It adds that it has 1,000 staff dedicated to tackling fraud.

A Santander spokesperson said: “We’re committed to working with the industry, regulators and Ombudsman in the fight against fraud, as well as using our own channels and campaigns to educate customers on the dangers of fraud and scams.”