UK banks should do more to protect customers tricked into transferring money to fraudsters, according to a consumer body that has lodged a “supercomplaint”with financial regulators. The move by Which? means banks could now face a formal investigation into whether they can continue refusing to reimburse victims.
The organisation submitted its first supercomplaint this year in the same week that official data revealed that fraud in the UK payments industry had soared by 53% as criminals develop increasingly sophisticated tactics to steal bank customers’ cash.
Which? said banks should “shoulder more responsibility” when someone is conned into transferring money to another person’s account, just as they reimburse customers who lose money due to scams involving debit and credit cards or fraudulent account activity.