When Alison contacted us, she said she had been scammed into sending money to a man she’d met through an online dating website. Her bank had told her it didn't think she’d done enough to verify the fraudster’s identity, so she got in touch with us to make a complaint.
What happened
Alison told us that she joined a dating website as she wanted to meet someone to have a lasting relationship with. She had been experiencing a particularly difficult time in her personal life when she fell victim to the scam. Alison had serious health struggles across the year and was prescribed strong medication from her doctor to help her. She told us she was feeling extremely low and lonely and was dealing with things on her own when she joined the dating website. She felt it might have been a “last shot” at happiness.
Alison said she started speaking to a man by exchanging messages on the website, this progressed to talking at length, sharing photographs and details of their lives. She said the man gained her trust and made her promises of a future life together. The man told Alison that he’d been widowed and had a young daughter.
As the relationship began to grow Alison said the man had told her there had been an incident at his work and that he risked losing his job. Alison said the man asked her for £4,000 to cover his legal costs, which she paid.
In the weeks and months that followed, the man made other requests for money for a variety of different reasons. He claimed that his life, and that of his daughter, was at risk if Alison didn’t make the payments.
Family members became concerned when Alison asked to borrow money from them to meet the man’s demands. They were eventually able to convince her that she may have been the victim of a scam – so she contacted the police and her bank.
Alison’s bank didn’t think she’d acted reasonably. They thought she didn’t question the payment requests sufficiently – nor did they feel she had done enough to verify the fraudster’s identity. So they declined her claim under the Contingent Reimbursement Model (CRM) Code.
What we said
The CRM Code defines vulnerability broadly. It requires firms to refund customers in any case where, due to their circumstances or characteristics, it would not have been reasonable to have expected them to have protected themselves against the scam.
Alison was clearly at a very difficult point in her life and we thought this had a significant impact on her ability to protect herself from scams of this nature. It was also clear that the scammer exploited what they knew about her circumstances in order to keep extracting money from her.
So, we thought Alison was vulnerable in the sense meant by the CRM Code and we asked the bank to refund her in full. When we told the bank more information about Alison’s circumstances it agreed to reimburse.
Some ways to help protect yourself against romance scams
- Be wary of unsolicited contact on social media, in online games or on dating sites
- If the party contacting you moves the conversation on quickly, take a step back. Whilst some romance scammers will play the ‘long game’ in our experience most won’t normally hang around too long before expressing their feelings and asking very personal questions
- A significant red flag is when the person insists on only communicating via messaging apps and refuse to speak on the phone or in a video call or in person
- They’ll try to convince you there is a good reason for this – they say things like they are in the military, working as a doctor overseas, or work on an oil rig. Don’t be fooled – they won’t want to speak because they aren’t who they say they are.
- Requests for money will inevitably follow. NEVER send money to someone you’ve met online without verifying who they truly are.