Santander Credit Card - Rejected Claim - any other help available?

DaisyJane44

Hello,

I am wondering if anyone knows where I can go to try and get some further help with this. 
With hindsight, I can see the initial decision was not a good one, but I need help on the situation I am in now.

I was contacted by my brother a while ago who was desperately in need of help to make an online payment to release his money in a crypto account online, believed to be in crypto.com (but this turned out not to be true, it was fraud where the site was being mirrored). He had spent a few weeks using it, the had put money in and taken it out etc in small amounts, but it was suddenly asking him for large amounts. He phoned me in a panic, and asked for help, as all of his own money (about 5k) was in there. I paid 2k on my credit card for him, and long story short it was all a scam, was not actually crypto.com. My brother works in finance, so I never expected this to be a scam, and he had been completely pulled in by this scam and had been talking on WhatsApp to an "advisor" for weeks, and had made profit. As soon as these larger transactions happened, it became very clear. 

Anyway... Both of us have reported this to the police and to the bank. Santander have rejected my claim as they put the warning up to say be careful it isn't fraud when I made the payment. Is there anything else I can do? Any help would be really appreciated. 

CliveOfIndia

A classic pig-butchering scam.

Santander are correct here - if your card had been used fraudulently then it would be different, but you willingly and knowingly made the payment yourself.

Sadly I think the best you can hope for is that the police manage to trace the fraudsters - but realistically, the chances of that are miniscule. 

eskbanker

What sort of claim did you make - I'd have thought that there'd be potential for a successful chargeback, on the basis of goods/services not received?

CliveOfIndia

eskbanker said:

What sort of claim did you make - I'd have thought that there'd be potential for a successful chargeback, on the basis of goods/services not received?

Genuine question - would there be any chance whatsoever of a successful chargeback claim against fraudsters?

adamp87

Can you challenge the complaint or is the final decision? Whilst there's arguments you authorised the payment, I don't think just having a pop up/notice saying "are you sure it's not a scam" or another phrase is as effective as they think it is. Not sure on the success but you never know if you push further

eskbanker

CliveOfIndia said:

eskbanker said:

What sort of claim did you make - I'd have thought that there'd be potential for a successful chargeback, on the basis of goods/services not received?

Genuine question - would there be any chance whatsoever of a successful chargeback claim against fraudsters?

Yes - chargebacks put the ball in the court of the recipient, who then has the responsibility to supply grounds for challenging the chargeback, such as providing evidence of delivery.  If they're unable to do so, then the claim is met by their merchant bank, who'd then generally recover the funds from the fraudsters but would be on the hook themselves if there were insufficient funds.

Mark_d

CliveOfIndia said:

eskbanker said:

What sort of claim did you make - I'd have thought that there'd be potential for a successful chargeback, on the basis of goods/services not received?

Genuine question - would there be any chance whatsoever of a successful chargeback claim against fraudsters?

I honestly don't think you can get your money back as there there is no enforceable contract with the fraudster.