Bank turned down my fraud claim because I authorised the transfer myself. Is that the end of it?

#1Grace H(Joined Mar 2025 · 31 posts)May 27, 2026, 8:09 pm

Posting this partly for advice and partly because I am furious and typing helps.

In April I paid a deposit for a caravan I found advertised, bank transfer, straight from my current account to the seller's. There was no caravan. I have said all this before so I will not go through it again.

What is new is the letter. My bank has declined to reimburse me, and the reason given is that I made the payment myself and it was correctly executed to the account I instructed. Which is technically true and also completely misses the point, because the whole reason I made it was that I had been lied to.

The letter says I can ask for the decision to be reviewed. It does not say how, particularly, or what would make any difference. Has anyone actually got a decision like this overturned, or is this the polite way of saying no forever?

#2Walt F(Joined Jan 2026 · 17 posts)May 27, 2026, 9:33 pm

Not the end. Get it in writing that it is a final response, because that phrase matters for whatever comes next, and do not accept a verbal no over the phone as the finish line.

I am sorry, Grace. The letter arriving is somehow worse than the original theft. The first one was a stranger, the second one is your own bank on headed paper.

#3Dana WhitakerFraud examiner(Joined Feb 2025 · 89 posts)May 29, 2026, 9:24 am

A declined first claim is not the end, and I would treat that letter as the opening position rather than the verdict.

The distinction the bank is leaning on is real, so it helps to name it. Unauthorised fraud is where someone takes money out of your account without you, a stolen card, an account takeover, a payment you never made. Authorised push payment fraud, which is what happened to you, is where you make the payment yourself because you were deceived about who you were paying or what you were buying. Those two sit under different rules, and banks handle them very differently. Being told "you authorised it" is a description of the category, not a finding that you have no case.

Three routes are usually still open after a decline like this, and they are not mutually exclusive.

First, the bank's own complaints process. The reimbursement decision and a formal complaint about that decision are separate things, and people frequently stop after the first without ever starting the second. Put it in writing, state plainly that you were deceived, and ask two specific questions: what warning was shown to you at the point of payment, and what checks were done when a new account was set up to receive it. Ask for their final response letter.

Second, escalation beyond the bank. Most countries have an independent complaints body for financial firms, and where one exists it can look at your case again after the bank issues a final response, at no cost to you. What that body is called and what powers it has vary a lot by country, so find the correct one for where you bank rather than following advice written for somewhere else. Deadlines apply, usually counted from the final response, so get that letter and diarise the date.

Third, the receiving bank. The money went into an account somewhere, and that institution has its own fraud team and its own obligations. A report to them can occasionally freeze what is left, though realistically that depends on speed and there is no guarantee anything remains.

On what tends to change an outcome. Evidence that the payment was induced by deception is the centre of it: the advert, the full message thread, the seller's profile, the listing removal, the invented reason for urgency. Also relevant is what the bank did or did not do, including whether any warning was displayed, whether the payment was out of character for your account, and whether it was flagged. And keep every date, because the timeline of when you told them is frequently the thing under dispute later.

What I will not do is tell you whether your claim should succeed, because that turns on the rules where you bank, the wording of your instruction, and facts I cannot see. This is general information, not legal or financial advice for your case, and if the amount is significant it is worth asking a properly qualified adviser in your country.

The payment-method landscape, which is the single biggest factor in whether anything comes back, is set out in can you get your money back after a scam.

#4tomd52(Joined Jun 2025 · 19 posts)May 29, 2026, 1:02 pm

The "what warning did you show me" question is a good one. When I lost money the bank made a lot of noise afterwards about a warning screen, and when I asked them to produce the exact wording it took them three weeks and it turned out to be a generic notice about paying people you know.

#5quilterjean(Joined Sep 2025 · 22 posts)May 30, 2026, 10:41 am

Also, and I know this sounds trivial, keep a diary from today. Every call, the date, the time, the name of who you spoke to, what they said. I did not do this and by month three I could not tell one conversation from another, which made me sound uncertain exactly when I needed to sound clear.

Print things too. I lost access to a message thread when the platform closed the seller's account and my screenshots were all that survived.

#6Grace H(Joined Mar 2025 · 31 posts)August 19, 2026, 6:15 pm

Long overdue update, and it is a mixed one.

Complained formally, got the final response letter, escalated it. That review is still open, so I have no ending to report. What I do have is a folder, a diary, and the discovery that the receiving account was opened five weeks before my payment, which I only know because I asked.

Two things I would tell anyone at the start of this. The bank's first answer is not the process, it is the first step of it. And the paperwork is exhausting in a very particular way, because every stage makes you recount the day you were fooled to somebody neutral. That part is worse than the money now. But I am not dropping it.