Scams contributing to rise in current account complaints taken to ombudsman

Frauds and scams are contributing to a rise in complaints about current accounts, according to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

Current accounts continue to be the most complained-about financial product, according to the service’s latest data.

It received 6,082 complaints about current accounts between October and December 2022, up from 5,522 complaints received during the same period a year earlier.

Around two in five (39%) complaints about current accounts to the FOS are upheld in favour of consumers.

The service said that it is seeing a rise in complaints related to scams, such as when someone is tricked into transferring money to a fraudster (authorised push payment or APP fraud), as well as complaints related to identity theft and other payments.

In total, the ombudsman service received 5,849 fraud and scam complaints in the last three months of 2022, across all financial products, not just current accounts.

Of the 5,849 fraud and scam complaints, about 3,151 related to APP scams, jumping from 1,910 in the same period a year earlier.

The service is also seeing a rise in third parties, such as claims managers and law firms, bringing such claims.

Currently, many banks have signed up to a voluntary reimbursement code for blameless victims of bank transfer scams and some account providers operate their own fraud refund guarantees.

Consumer campaigners have raised concerns about inconsistencies over how the voluntary reimbursement rules are being applied.

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has been consulting on proposals for mandatory reimbursement for victims of scams where more than £100 is stolen.

The Lending Standards Board (LSB), which oversees the voluntary code, recently said that more responsibilities will be placed on account providers receiving payments suspected to be fraudulent.

Banks are expected to meet the LSB’s new requirements by December this year.