Afterwards, Hunter realised he had been scammed and called the bank, but it was too late – the payments had been processed. He asked the bank to reimburse him, but it declined, saying he had shared the codes with the caller – a breach of the bank's terms and conditions. He vehemently denied having shared the codes. The bank offered to reimburse 25 per cent of his loss, but he remained unhappy and complained to us.

Our investigation

We could not determine how the scammer obtained the codes. Hunter might have shared them, but it was also possible the scammer obtained them in some other way. We were not sure the bank could rely on its terms and conditions to decline to reimburse him in these circumstances because it wasn’t clear whether Hunter had shared the codes. However, the bank said Hunter had not taken reasonable care regardless because someone had called him out of the blue and he had not checked to ensure the caller was from the bank.

Outcome

The bank increased its offer to 50 per cent of the loss. Hunter accepted this revised offer.