The caller says my account is being emptied as we speak and there is no time to call back. What if they are right?

Then your bank can protect the account itself, without a penny moving anywhere — banks can freeze, block and flag an account in seconds. What they never need is for you to move the money. Hang up and call 159; if the caller was genuine, the bank will already know about the problem when you ring.

I sent the transfer five minutes ago. Is it already too late?

No. Call your bank now. It can ask the receiving bank to freeze what is still in the account, and if the transfer was flagged it may still be sitting in the four-day hold. Whatever is recovered, your right to reimbursement under the APP scheme does not depend on the money being found.

The payment shows as “pending” in my app. Can I cancel it?

Sometimes. A scheduled or future-dated payment can be cancelled before it is sent. A Faster Payment that has already been submitted usually cannot be reversed by you, but the bank may have delayed it and can decline to complete it once you say you suspect fraud — which is why the call, not the app, is the right tool.

I read out a one-time passcode and installed an app they sent. Have I lost the right to a refund?

Not automatically. If the scammer used the code to make payments you did not authorise, those are unauthorised transactions, which the bank must refund unless it can show you were fraudulent or grossly negligent. If you made the payments yourself on their instruction, it is an APP claim and the bank still has to prove gross negligence. Tell the bank exactly what happened; how the code was extracted from you — a spoofed number, a rehearsed script — is part of that assessment.

I paid in cash or cryptocurrency. What applies?

The mandatory scheme covers bank transfers to UK accounts only. Cash handed to a courier, or cryptocurrency bought and sent to a wallet, falls outside it — but you should still report to your bank and to Report Fraud, and a complaint that your bank failed to question a large, out-of-character withdrawal or transfer to a crypto exchange can be taken to the Financial Ombudsman Service on its own facts.

I am not sure it is a scam. Will the bank think I am wasting its time?

No. Banks would far rather take a call that turns out to be nothing than a claim that turns out to be £20,000. Since October 2024 they have had an explicit legal basis for pausing a payment while they check with you, and a customer who rings first is exactly the situation that rule was written for.

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I Think I'm Being Scammed Right Now. What Should I Do in the Next Ten Minutes?

Fraud on your bank account or think you have been scammed? Hang up, call 159, ask the bank to hold or recall the payment, then report it.…