Ombudsman not upheld my complaint

masonic

It must be hard work building all those straw men, so why not do just that. While sitting there, perhaps reflect on how effective your tactics here have been at garnering support for your cause.

Chief_of_Staffy

masonic said:

It must be hard work building all those straw men, so why not do just that. While sitting there, perhaps reflect on how effective your tactics here have been at garnering support for your cause.

Entirely ineffective against the pro-scammer crowd who believe the public should be treated like morons and deserve what they get, and on a money-saving site no less.

But newsflash: the vast majority of people who read these threads don't comment, and maybe one of them will avoid being scammed because they read my posts. Sorry to put a dampener on your evening.

masonic

People should not, and do not need to be, treated like morons. There is no pro-scammer crowd here. False claims and misinformation help nobody. Try sitting for a little longer.

Ergates

Chief_of_Staffy said:

Ergates said:

Chief_of_Staffy said:

I've explained that in detail on three occasions. Please read what I write before you comment.

No, you've just asserted it, without providing any evidence or explanation as to *why* people would pay attention to *this* particular advice when they routinely ignore every other piece of advice on the same subject. 

You've also not given any indication about how you propose to go about "giving relevant information to people and making sure that they understand and acknowledge it,".   Are you going to force people to read/watch something?  If so, how?  If not, what else?  How do you "give" people information in a way that they cannot simply ignore?

Why are you repeatedly refusing to read what I write? Here, from this very thread:

>

Chief_of_Staffy said:

I cannot see why the banks don't make it perfectly clear how they will contact you, what they might ask of you, and what they will never ask you to do. Not in the Ts & Cs, or on some page hidden on a website, but periodically presented to you as information points that you must read and individually acknowledge before you can proceed to your account.

>

Chief_of_Staffy said:

I wasn't talking about information at the point of transaction, I'm talking about periodic communication in bullet point form so everyone knows how their bank may, and will not, communicate with them. Heck, do it as a quiz.

* If you receive a message telling you to transfer money from your account, how likely is it to be a scam?

a) Unlikely
b) Fairly unlikely
c) Likely
d) Absolutely certain

If you know it, it's five minutes of your time once a year. If you don't, it might save you ten grand.

I did read what you wrote and I stand by my statements.

" Not in the Ts & Cs, or on some page hidden on a website, but periodically presented to you as information points that you must read and individually acknowledge before you can proceed to your account."
So... like the numerous warning pages that people must acknowledge before completing a transaction, the ones that they just click past without actually reading.  People don't read pages of text presented to them that are blocking them from what they want to do.

"I wasn't talking about information at the point of transaction, I'm talking about periodic communication in bullet point form"
That people won't read, because people don't read pages of information presented to them that are blocking them from what they want to do.


You've still failed to answer the very simple yet critical question:    What makes you think people will read and pay attention to *this* information when they *very very clearly* don't read any of the other information that is presented to them?   Is it magic information?   Will it jump off the page and directly into their brains without them having to do anything?  Will people have to answer a quiz before they're allowed onto their online banking page?

The obvious reason you've failed to answer the question is that people don't read pages of information presented to them that are blocking them from what they want to do. 

eskbanker

The annual fraud reports issued by UK Finance can be quite illuminating, and in the context of this thread it's perhaps worth noting that police/bank impersonation fraud has been plummeting in recent years, to the extent that the number of cases in 2024 was less than a quarter of the 2021 peak, so the message has undoubtedly been getting through (augmented by the introduction of preventive measures such as Confirmation of Payee of course):


https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/2025-05/UK Finance Annual Fraud report 2025.pdf

In the context of some earlier chat about the wide range of scams highlighted by the Take Five campaign, it's maybe worth putting those 7,202 police/bank impersonation cases in the context of the 3.3 million fraud cases last year, or even just the 185,733 occurrences of authorised fraud, i.e. there are numerous other more significant fraud types to go after.

There is obviously recognition of the value of education and awareness, even though the measures clearly don't go far enough for some:

Customer education and awareness campaigns
– UK Finance delivers year-round customer education through the ‘Take Five to Stop Fraud’ campaign, helping people and businesses protect themselves from fraud.

Education and awareness delivered to schools about money mules through the Don’t be Fooled campaign.

38 major banks and building societies are currently signed up to the Take Five campaign, bringing the industry together to give people simple and consistent fraud awareness advice. In 2024 the campaign:
• Ran Take Five Week when we released the ScamSceptible online tool so people can test their susceptibility to scams based on different stressors.
• Hosted Stop Inn, physical pop-ups in London, Manchester and Glasgow, where people tested their ability to stop an action by using mind-reading technology to pour a drink. 
• Teamed up with Mencap to help people with learning disabilities stay safe from scams through a series of easy-read guides.
• Developed resources to help raise awareness of fraud amongst people who speak English as a second language.
• Launched a TikTok channel to reach new audiences.

The campaign continues to deliver fraud prevention advice and education through an ongoing programme of activity.

Don’t Be Fooled has created primary and secondary teaching resources to educate children about the dangers and consequences of becoming a money mule. The free materials have also been specifically adapted for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. They include classroom and assembly presentations, posters, student flyers and parent letters. The resources have been awarded the Young Enterprise Quality Mark and over 430 schools have registered to use them.

* wonders if this will cause me to be lazily pigeonholed as 'pro-scammer' or as some sort of industry shill.... *

masonic

Chief_of_Staffy said:

No, it shows precisely what I said. 48% of people would like to be better educated about the safety of online banking. Showing that education is required. If you want to break it down as to what specifically concerns them, you can go to the details where it clearly says that whilst he biggest concern is data, 

"80% of Brits [state] that they feel their money is safe at their bank"

meaning that 20% do not. So that puts paid to your ridiculous claim that nobody who doesn't have 100% faith in the banks uses them.

In fact, according to the survey of Brits (Brits, note, not foreigners as you falsely claim) one person in five who uses banks does not fully trust the bank with their money.

When ~80% of the Brits within the wider international survey are willing to state that they feel their money would be safe at their bank, it is wrong to conclude that the other 20% feel it is unsafe. This is a false dichotomy, ignoring other possibilities. Among those not stating "safe", who could number around 40 individuals, there could be a spectrum of opinions between safe and unsafe, those who were unsure, indifferent, or didn't respond to the question. The number considering their money would be unsafe at the bank could be considerably smaller.

You've also made an unsubstantiated leap that those people who genuinely think their money would be unsafe at the bank are keeping their money there. However, the survey provides no information about where respondents keep their money. Banking services are pretty much essential to modern life, but it is not necessary to carry a credit balance. In fact, it is a good defensive posture to minimise the available balance of a bank account.

Nobody has made the "ridiculous claim that nobody who doesn't have 100% faith in the banks uses them". There should be nobody who has 100% faith in the banks. Banks can make mistakes, freeze your accounts, have IT problems, close branches, add unhelpful AI-based services, and generally erode the faith/trust of their customers for many reasons. It is a massive oversimplification to reduce trust / perception of safety to a single issue.

Chief_of_Staffy said:

masonic said:

If all of these people need to be told their bank will never ask them to move their money to a "safe" account, then the good news is this already happens, every time they set up a new payment from most banks.

It doesn't.

Anyone who has set up a new payment mandate recently will have had first had experience of these clear warnings. Things like: "Is this a scam? Stop and think: Is someone telling you to move this money to a new account to keep it safe? This is a scam. Stop now..." that must be acknowledged to proceed to the confirmation screen. Or SMS one time codes stating "NEVER SHARE THIS PASSCODE. Not even with us. If someone is asking for this HANG UP, IT'S A SCAM".

While many find the growing number of warnings and additional steps annoying, there is no better time to try to interrupt the potential victim and make them think about what they are doing than right before they make the payment.

born_again

Chief_of_Staffy said:

"Despite convenience being key, consumer trust in online banking continues to be an issue when it comes to financial services. NetApps' survey reveals many UK consumers still feel held back from the convenience of online banking with almost half (48 per cent) saying that if they knew more about the safety of online banking, they would start to use it or use it more often." - Fintech Times

What do these people need to know?
The less the public know about the background security. The less chance that fraudsters get to know how to get people to believe that it is the bank calling & not a fraudster.

Take it as given that online banking is secure. Which is not the issue the OP faced. As that was card related & passing the secure code to the  fraudster. Which is clearly stated in the text, NOT TO PASS to anyone.

Altior

One element of human nature I feel needs to be considered is that people need to know that there is a tangible risk of actually losing their own money through one of these scammers. If people knew, or concluded, that whatever happens, whatever warnings they ignore or click through, they'll invariably get their funds re-instated, then why would they bother paying much attention at all when carrying out high value transactions? Sure it might be a short term hassle, but there's no tangible risk of ending up with a big loss. Which of course would be in the favour of the fraudsters. 

Then there is always the possibility of collusion of course, and plausible deniability. 

It cannot be that the bank stands all of the responsibility and the financial risk of a customer not following the bank's own security procedures when operating their own accounts, when moving their own funds around. And the customer is protected, whatever mistakes they make or however casually they take carrying out these transactions.

It's fair enough that the bank is expected to do what is reasonable to mitigate risk of their customers being defrauded. But they cannot defend everyone (or every one!).