On Sunday April 14th 2019, TSB launched their TSB Fraud Refund Guarantee that promises to cover and refund innocent customers of any legitimate fraud up to the value of £1 million per claim.
The scheme follows the significant cyber breach experienced by TSB in April 2018 which left over 1.9 million customers unable to access their money at a loss of more than £100 million. Furthermore, customers were exposed to exploitative demands from the cyber criminals in order to be given access to their money.
Now TSB have announced that victims of all fraud, even Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud, where the victim is tricked into the transaction, will be refunded quickly and easily.
Staggeringly, the UK Finance report ‘Fraud the Facts 2019’ emphasises the immense power cyber criminals and fraudsters have in persuading us to hand over our money to them.
In 2017, 43,875 attempts were made to convince individuals or businesses to part with their money. By 2018, as social engineering tactics and impersonation methods become more sophisticated, this number had grown to 84,624.
Unfortunately, the success rate of authorised push payment fraud is also on the rise with £354.3 million successfully stolen last year. This represents a significant increase from the £236 million extracted in 2017.
Of the 2018 total, only £42.3 million was repatriated with the customer! When only 11% of APP money is successfully returned to the customer, it means that many are forced to move through an extremely difficult process of working with regulators and lenders to gain access to their stolen money.
Although a voluntary code of conduct for banks is about to launch at the end of May, that will ensure banks and lenders return all stolen money to innocent victims, it is thought that the TSB’s guarantee of redeeming a maximum of £1 million per claim offers more to protect consumers.
A TSB statement said:
“All too often people who have money taken out of their account by fraudsters have to fight to get their money back. Even though this is the last thing you feel like doing if you’re the victim of crime.
“Our Fraud Refund Guarantee means that you will get a refund even if you make an honest mistake. Whether you accidentally click on something you shouldn’t, or you share some sensitive information without thinking. As long as you’re an innocent victim, we’ll refund you.”
Do you think this takes a lot loss stress in the final completion process? Will this mean that conveyancers need to increase the due diligence process?
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