Bank transfer scams — how to get your money back.

Bank transfer scams are the largest category of UK fraud by value and the headline category for the Payment Systems Regulator’s Mandatory Reimbursement Scheme. If you sent the money from a UK bank account on or after 7 October 2024, the default position is that you get it back.

Will my bank refund a bank transfer scam?

In almost all cases, yes. Since 7 October 2024 the Payment Systems Regulator’s Mandatory Reimbursement Scheme requires UK banks to refund victims of bank-transfer (APP) fraud up to £85,000 per claim, unless the bank can prove you acted with gross negligence. The receiving bank pays half the cost. The default outcome of a properly filed claim is reimbursement.

How long do I have to claim?

You have 13 months from the date of the last fraudulent payment to bring the claim to your bank under the PSR scheme. If the bank refuses, you have a further six months from the bank’s final response letter to escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

What if the receiving bank cannot recover the funds?

It does not matter for your refund. The PSR scheme places the reimbursement obligation on your sending bank, which pays you regardless of whether the funds can be recovered from the recipient. Recovery is a problem for the banks to share between themselves.

I sent the money to the right name. Does that count against me?

Not necessarily. Confirmation of Payee tells you whether the account name matches what you typed — if the scammer used the genuine company name as the payee, the check will pass even though the account itself belongs to a fraudster. CoP is a useful warning when it triggers; it is not a confession of negligence when it does not.

Can I claim if I sent multiple payments?

Yes. The 13-month deadline runs from the last fraudulent payment, and the £85,000 cap applies per claim, not per payment. A series of related fraudulent payments is normally treated as a single APP fraud claim.

What if I sent money internationally or by card?

International payments are out of scope of the PSR scheme — but your bank may still refund under its own goodwill policy or under the Financial Ombudsman’s "fair and reasonable" jurisdiction. Card payments may be claimable under chargeback or, for purchases between £100 and £30,000, under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

Scam Refund · Scam Types

Bank transfer scams — how to get your money back.

Bank transfer scams are the largest category of UK fraud by value and the headline category for the Payment Systems Regulator’s Mandatory Reimbursement Scheme. If you sent the money from a UK bank account on or after 7 October 2024, the default position is that you get it back.

What counts as a bank transfer scam

A bank transfer scam — the legal term is Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud — is any case where you authorised a bank transfer to someone, but only because you were tricked. The single most common variant is the impersonation scam: someone calls or texts claiming to be from your bank, the police, HMRC or a courier, persuades you that your money is at risk, and asks you to move it to a “safe account” that they control. Other common variants include fake-invoice scams (a real-looking invoice from a real-looking supplier with the bank details swapped), fake-refund scams (HMRC, Royal Mail, parking, anyone with a plausible reason to be sending you money), and account-takeover where the scammer controls a real business’s email and intercepts the genuine invoice.

Whatever the cover story, the legal category is the same. You sent the money. The instruction to your bank was authorised. But the authorisation was procured by fraud — and that puts the case squarely inside the PSR Mandatory Reimbursement Scheme.

The PSR scheme in one paragraph

From 7 October 2024, any UK bank or building society that sends a Faster Payment or CHAPS payment to a UK-domiciled account on a consumer’s instruction must reimburse the consumer if the payment turns out to have been APP fraud. The cap is £85,000 per claim. The bank has five working days to refund or to write to you with a decision. The receiving bank pays half the cost. The bank can refuse only on narrow grounds — principally gross negligence on your part, which the bank has to prove.

What you have to show

The evidential bar for the customer is intentionally low. You need to show that you sent the payment to a third party in good faith, that you have been the victim of fraud, and that you reported the matter promptly — to the bank within 13 months of the last fraudulent payment, and to Action Fraud (or Police Scotland) for a crime reference number. Beyond that, the burden shifts to the bank to investigate and either refund or prove gross negligence.

What helps your case is good evidence: the original messages, screenshots of the website or social media account that led to the payment, copies of any fake invoices or letters, your bank statements showing the payments, and a clean chronology of what happened. The single biggest reason claims are slowed or refused is missing evidence; the second is evidence that has been edited or annotated. Keep originals.

What “gross negligence” really means

Gross negligence is the only defence open to the bank, and the PSR has set the bar deliberately high. Being trusting is not gross negligence. Being persuaded by a sophisticated, well-rehearsed scam is not gross negligence. Acting under pressure from someone claiming to be from your bank or the police is not gross negligence. Even ignoring an in-app warning is not, on its own, automatically gross negligence — the warning has to have been specific, prominent and relevant to the actual scam.

What might cross the line: ignoring a Confirmation of Payee mismatch warning shown at the moment of payment; continuing to pay after the bank has spoken to you and identified the recipient as part of a known scam; or knowingly giving false information to the bank or the Financial Ombudsman. Vulnerable consumers cannot be denied a refund on gross-negligence grounds at all.

The Confirmation of Payee question

Confirmation of Payee (CoP) is the system that checks whether the account name you have entered matches the actual account name at the destination bank. Banks have argued in the past that ignoring a CoP warning amounts to gross negligence. The PSR has not endorsed that view as a blanket rule. CoP only catches a subset of frauds — the scam works perfectly well if the fraudster opens an account in the genuine company’s name — and a passing CoP check is not a guarantee against fraud. Whether a particular CoP warning matters is fact-specific.

A refusal must come in a final response letter under FCA DISP rules. From the date of that letter you have six months to refer the case to the Financial Ombudsman Service. The Ombudsman is free, independent, and binding on the bank if you accept its decision. It applies a “fair and reasonable” test under section 228 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and is not bound by the bank’s reasoning. A successful FOS award covers the principal loss, simple interest at 8% per year from the date of loss, and compensation for distress and inconvenience.

Ready to claim back a bank transfer scam?

We assemble a PSR-aligned bank complaint and Financial Ombudsman pack for a fixed £39. No CMC fees. You keep 100% of any refund.