Bank Transfer Scam Refunds: What the First Year Showed

If a scammer tricks you into sending money yourself, can you get it back? In the UK the rules changed, and the first-year numbers are now in.

By Siddharth ShankarUpdated October 11, 2026

Many scams end with the victim authorising a payment. The criminal never needs to hack the account because the account holder does the transfer. For years, those payments were hard to recover. A rule change in the UK shows what happens when responsibility shifts toward the banks.

What happened

According to the PSR, the authorised push payment (APP) reimbursement requirement took effect on October 7, 2024 and applies to qualifying Faster Payments and CHAPS transactions. In the first nine months, from October 7, 2024 to June 30, 2025, £112 million was reimbursed.

The PSR says 88% of money lost to APP scams and claimed back from a payment firm was returned, up from 66% in the same period of 2023/24. There were 126,000 claims, about 15% fewer than a year earlier. It says 84% were resolved within five business days and 97% within 35 days.

How it worked

An APP scam is one where the victim is persuaded to send a payment to a criminal, for example by a fake bank call, a fake invoice or an investment pitch. Under the requirement, firms must reimburse qualifying victims, with set timelines for decisions.

The PSR notes that direct comparison with data before the policy is not possible because the definition of an APP scam changed. The headline percentage is therefore best read as a description of the new system, not as a measure of improvement over the old one.

What was exposed

The PSR's article is about the money, not the data. Victims were socially engineered into authorising payments themselves, and the article does not describe individual data exposure. We include it because the way people lose money often starts with data: a scammer who knows your bank, your recent purchases or your relatives can sound far more believable.

How it ended

The outcome here is a policy result. Most claims were resolved quickly and most claimed money was returned. But the PSR's survey of 1,448 UK adults found that 49% of fraud victims did not attempt to access reimbursement and 71% were unaware of the policy. Almost 60% of APP fraud victims were hit by purchase fraud.

What the percentages mean

The jump from 66% to 88% looks dramatic, but the PSR warns that the two figures are not directly comparable. Before the policy, many payment firms did not have to reimburse, and the scope of what counted as an APP scam was different.

What can be said safely is narrower. Under the new rules, most money claimed by qualifying victims was returned, and most claims were resolved within five business days. The less comfortable numbers are the ones about awareness: 71% of surveyed fraud victims had not heard of the policy.

Key facts at a glance

• Requirement started: October 7, 2024
• Reimbursed in nine months: £112 million
• Share of claimed losses returned: 88%, compared with 66% a year earlier
• Claims: 126,000, about 15% fewer than a year earlier
• Resolved within five business days: 84%
• Victims who did not attempt to claim: 49% in the PSR survey

Why this matters

Rules only help people who know about them. A reimbursement scheme that half of victims never use leaves many people uncompensated even though they are entitled. The practical lesson is to report quickly and ask your bank directly whether the payment qualifies.

What you can do

What the PSR does not say

The article does not describe individual cases or breaches, and it warns against simple comparison with the past. For a case that fed bank-transfer fraud, see LabHost.

Related reading that helps with cases like this: how scammers find your phone number and email, how to prevent identity theft and what an exposed phone number means. You can also try our free phone number exposure check.