Forcing banks to refund some scam victims 'cut payment fraud by £73 million' – but many still left out of pocket as rules 'not consistently applied', new report finds

Under rules introduced in October 2024, if you're tricked into sending money to a scammer using a UK bank transfer – known as 'authorised push payment' (APP) fraud – your bank should refund you up to £85,000. For more on how these rules work, see our Help, I've been scammed! guide.

An independent analysis of the impact of these rules has now found:

• Consumer losses to this type of fraud have fallen by an estimated £73 million per year.

• The number of cases has fallen by an estimated 34,800 cases per year.

• However, outcomes for victims "remain inconsistent" and "vary materially" between banks and financial providers, with some much more likely to reject claims on the basis that customers were not sufficiently careful, for example (though the report didn't name any individual banks).

• In addition, the impact of the rules on overall fraud is "less certain", as there's been an increase in scams relying on cryptocurrency and international payments (which aren't covered). Plus, APP fraud is "only a fraction" of the £1.3 billion of total fraud losses reported in 2025, the report notes.

In response, the Payment Systems Regulator – which oversees the reimbursement rules and commissioned the review – said it would launch a consultation "before the end of the year" to improve compliance across the board.

We've long campaigned for more action on scams

Martin and MSE have long advocated for urgent action against scams, and particularly scam advertisements, which are often behind APP fraud. In fact, Martin sued Facebook himself in 2018, in a landmark campaigning defamation lawsuit after 1,000s of scam adverts appeared on the social media site abusing his name or image.

The lawsuit was settled in 2019 after Facebook agreed with Martin on a major two-pronged action plan to fight the problem: that it would donate £3 million to set up a new anti-scams project and create a scam ads reporting tool supported by a dedicated team, unique to Facebook in the UK. However, we've seen little progress overall in quelling scam ads since that settlement.

Just a few weeks ago, Martin let loose on politicians over 10 years of scam-ad inaction, saying the following on ITV's This Morning: "I've sued. I've lobbied. I've cried at hideous cases of vulnerable people losing everything. Why has nothing been done?". We've also recently seen a scam MSE lookalike website for the first time – see our Clone site warning.