Bank had no grounds to make chargeback request

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Bank had no grounds to make chargeback request

Categories:

Chargebacks, Common scams targeting bank customers,

Summary:

Amaia began investing with an online trading company, depositing funds in a trading account with her credit card. She was talked into investing more money, but ended up with a loss. She undertook research that led her to believe the trading company was a fraud. She complained to her bank, saying it should have been aware of this fact. She asked the bank to charge back the transactions, but the bank declined, saying there were no grounds for doing so.

Published:

September 2021

Our investigation

We consider a bank should attempt a chargeback if a right to one exists and it has a reasonable prospect of success. We were not satisfied there was any reasonable prospect of success in Amaia’s case. (One ground she might have had, that the company would not allow her to withdraw her available balance, did not apply in her case because her trading balance was in arrears.) Also, the trading company had disclaimers on its website warning about the risks of investing funds, and Amaia could provide nothing to show she had been led to believe otherwise (which would have been required for a chargeback on the grounds that the service was not as described).

We considered whether the bank should have known she was being scammed, but could find no warning signs that the bank ought to have noticed and acted on. Banks are under no general obligation to monitor transactions to detect or prevent the scamming of customers.