In September, the bank became concerned about her payments. Jayne had drained her and her husband's savings, and the bank noted that she was evasive when questioned about the payments. It recorded that she had said her husband had Alzheimer's disease. The bank’s international payments team referred the matter to the bank's fraud department, which contacted Jayne and told her it believed she was being scammed. Jayne was disbelieving and insisted the bank process her transactions. The bank refused and cancelled her international payment facility.

In early 2022, Jayne began transferring money to the scammer via a money remittance agency, which would send the funds overseas on her behalf. She lost another $15,000.

In mid-2022, her son became aware of the scam and contacted the bank. He said the bank should have intervened and stopped his mother's losses. He was a signatory on one of her accounts and said he should have been added as a signatory to all accounts, and that the bank should have contacted him if it had concerns – as he had explicitly asked it to do.

Our investigation

We reviewed the signing instructions and diary notes from when Jayne’s son was added to the one account, and it was clear he had been only asked to be added to one account. There was no evidence he had asked the bank to contact him if it had any concerns about the way the account was being used.

However, there was reason to believe that the bank should have become suspicious as early as mid-June – when Jayne had made only one payment – that she was being scammed because she gave inconsistent information about the recipient. By mid-July, an unusual pattern of transactions was unfolding, and by the end of July, Jayne had given more inconsistent information. The bank did not warn her about the possibility of a scam until October. However, given she disregarded this warning, we considered it unlikely she would have heeded an earlier warning.

Outcome

The bank offered Jayne compensation of $5,000, which she accepted.