A couple who were tricked into withdrawing £700,000 from banks in Bristol and Gloucestershire to ‘help a fraud investigation’ is not going to get any of it back, a court has heard.
Fiona Phillip took out £400,000 from her Barclays account at a branch in Gloucestershire, and a following £300,000 in Westbury-on-Trym on the following day in 2018, under the guise that she and her husband were helping a serious fraud investigation run by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA.)
Mrs Phillip used her Barclays bank account to transfer the sums of money to accounts in the United Arab Emirates.
However, the couple were defrauded, and, in a ruling today, a judge said Barclays bank is not liable to compensate for any losses, as The Mirror reports.
The bank said the customer had made the payments willingly, adding that any further safeguarding checks would not have prevented the scam.
The fraud started when Mrs Philip's husband, a doctor, received a phone call from a man who claimed to work for the FCA.
He claimed his bank, HSBC, and an investment company he had savings in, were unsafe and at risk of fraud.
In order to keep the money safe, the criminal said it had to be transferred into "safe accounts" before his investigation could be completed.
Dr Philipp, a retired consultant, said it was like "being squeezed in a very unpleasant vice, not knowing who to trust".
After visiting a Barclays branch in Gloucestershire, Mrs Philipp emailed copies of her passport and driving licence to the fraudster and then the next day visited Barclays' Westbury-on-Trym branch to make a second £300,000 payment.
He manipulated the couple to the extent that they allowed him to listen to meetings they had at the bank on an open line on the man's mobile phone, a High Court judgement said.
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In March 2018, an officer from Avon and Somerset Police visited the couple three times to warn them they were the victims of fraud after receiving intelligence from other police forces.
But only on the third meeting did they accept they were being defrauded.
At the time, the couple were preparing to process another £250,000 to the "safe account".
The transfer failed after Barclays blocked any further outgoings.
The written judgement from the High Court was published on Monday ruling in favour of Barclays Bank plc.
In it, Judge Russen QC said he felt "acute sympathy" for the couple who had "fallen victim to the dishonesty" of the fraudster but added "it would not be fair, just or reasonable to impose liability" on the bank.
The court heard that the woman's disclosure of security details to the fraudsters "involved clear breaches" of the bank's terms and conditions.
Alexia Knight, for Barclays, said it was doubtful that the scam would have been stopped if the bank had asked more "safeguarding questions".
