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APP Fraud Advice

3 replies

Kimura · 01/10/2025 13:29

A family member recently fell victim to APP fraud.

They have reported this to Monzo (and Action Fraud). Monzo's customer service is notoriously awful and have not been responding to his questions via their app.

I'm aware of their responsibilities re the APP Fraud Reimbursement Scheme. My relative appears to meet all the criteria for reimbursement, but there is one area which is unclear.

Monzo do not have to reimburse if they find a victim has been 'grossly negligent'.

In this case, the victim was contacted via text message by someone pretending to be a family member. They contacted them from a random number claiming it was their new number and asking the victim to save it, which they did. Later in the day they made contact again to initiate the scam, which was to make a payment for a bill on their behalf.

This family member had recently been made unemployed. The victim had offered to help out financially if needs be. There's no way the scammer could have known this - just an incredible stroke of luck.

As such, being asked to pay a bill didn't raise red flags. Obviously combined with the new number it should have!

The scammer later sent a message asking for a further payment, at which point the victim realized what was happening and reported it to Monzo.

My question is, would this be considered 'grossly negligent'? I'm aware of cases of people being found to be grossly negligent, in which they've made repeated payments of vast sums of money to people who are quite obviously scamming them.

This is a relatively small (albeit not insignificant) amount that was reported as soon as the victim became suspicious.

OP posts:
prh47bridge · 01/10/2025 18:56

Gross negligence does not apply if your family member is classed as vulnerable. If it does apply, the bar is very high. For example, the victim could be classed as grossly negligent if they have ignored warnings from their payment provider. Ultimately, it is up to Monzo to decide. If they refuse reimbursement, your family member can appeal to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Looking at previous decisions by the FOS, I don't think your family member's actions would be classed as grossly negligent, but I can't guarantee that is what the FOS would find if it got that far.

mynameiscalypso · 01/10/2025 19:03

The standard of gross negligence is still being worked out really but I think if Monzo refuse to reimburse, you’d have a pretty good chance at getting the decision reversed by the FOS.

Kimura · 02/10/2025 15:11

Thank you for your replies.

He would not be classed as vulnerable - Unfortunately just distracted by quite a stressful situation and running on an extreme lack of sleep, which no doubt played a part in his lapse in judgement.

Having done some more reading into 'gross negligence' as it relates to APP fraud, I'm fairly confident he'll be ok, even if it does have to go to the Ombudsman.

Incredibly Monzo still haven't provided an update 72 hours after the fraud report - he was told to expect one after 24.

OP posts:
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