Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud, or bank transfer fraud, is a type of cybercrime where scammers use tactics such as impersonation, interception, and social engineering techniques including grooming their victims to convince them to transfer money from their own bank accounts to those of the fraudsters.
In some cases of what is known as ‘two-step bank fraud’, victims are instructed to move their own money first from one bank to another, and then again into ‘a new account’ set up in their name – which is in fact in the control of the scammer. Usually, the scammers move the money straight onto another, difficult-to-track and often overseas account, which proves almost impossible to recover.
Banks are – or should be – aware of these types of scams and should have robust systems and processes in place to detect or deter the scams as they occur, including:
- Providing scam warnings throughout the transaction process.
- Halting or pausing the transaction if the activity is suspicious.
- Contact the customer directly if the activity is out of the ordinary.
Where the bank has not provided sufficient safeguards resulting in the customer losing money to a scam, there is the option to take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FOS is an independent, Government endorsed body responsible for investigating and adjudicating disputes between financial institutions and consumers, both business and individual.
