16-22 March 2026
Victim of investment fraud believed bank could have done more to prevent it
Sophie is retired and had access to funds for investment. She received an unsolicited email offering an investment opportunity with an internationally known investment bank. All the material looked genuine, including the brochure. Unlike with a lot of frauds, the approach by the fraudsters was not rushed nor was there any attempt to pressure Sophie to act. They gave Sophie plenty of time to consider the investment and got another “staff member” to ring her several days later to check to see if she was happy to invest.
Sophie went into her branch and transferred €20,000 to the fraudulent investors, thinking they were legitimate. Several days later Sophie got a call from her bank to say that it suspected that she had been scammed, as another customer was also a victim of the same fraud. Sophie made a complaint to the bank as she felt her bank should have known right from the start that these people were fraudsters. The bank made attempts to get the money back from the account the money was transferred to, but it failed.
Sophie then referred her complaint to the FSPO. Sophie believed that her bank should have refunded her the €20,000. During mediation, the bank responded that it did nothing wrong and that there was no way that it could have known that this was a fraud prior to the transfer. However, it acknowledged that Sophie could have been given better service when she was liaising with its fraud department. For this failure of service, it offered Sophie a goodwill gesture.
Sophie began to understand her own role in the fraud, but she did not think the offer was sufficient for the poor customer service with the bank’s fraud department. After an exchange of views during mediation at the FSPO, the bank made Sophie a final offer of €750. Sophie accepted the offer in the form of a Mediation Settlement and the complaint was resolved on this basis.