What happens if you lose more than £85,000 to a bank transfer scam

If a fraudster talks you into sending a bank transfer and you lose more than £85,000, the mandatory reimbursement scheme will not cover the whole amount. The scheme caps a claim at £85,000, and claims may be subject to a £100 excess, except where victims are found to be vulnerable¹. That cap is a limit on the scheme, not on your rights: you can still complain to your bank, and if you are unhappy with its answer you can take the case to the Financial Ombudsman Service, whose award limit is higher than the scheme cap³.

The gap matters because authorised push payment (APP) fraud is large and growing. UK Finance recorded a 19 per cent increase in losses, to £576.4 million, in 2025⁵. Purchase scams accounted for £118.1m of that, and advance fee scams £58.4m, both the highest ever recorded⁵. APP scams are the second biggest type of payment fraud reported by UK Finance⁶.

This page sets out what happens above the £85,000 line: how the ombudsman's higher award limit works, the eight-week rule for complaining to your bank first, how the ombudsman decides a case, what it can order, and where its limit stops and the courts begin.

Losses above £85,000: the ombudsman's award limit is higher than the scheme cap

The mandatory reimbursement scheme and the ombudsman are two different things, and the difference is what matters above £85,000. The scheme is a rulebook obligation on payment firms: it requires them to reimburse all in-scope customers who fall victim to APP fraud in most cases, up to a maximum of £85,000¹¹. The ombudsman is a dispute resolution service that can look at how a firm handled your claim and order compensation on a different scale.

The ombudsman's award limit is £455,000 for complaints referred on or after 1 April 2026 about acts or omissions on or after 1 April 2019¹². Earlier limits apply to complaints referred before that date: £350,000 for complaints about issues after 1 April 2019, rising in line with inflation each year⁷, and another source gives £445,000⁴. The limit has moved over time, so the figure that applies depends on when the complaint was referred.

The ombudsman can help victims of high-value scams with losses above £85,000 escalate their complaint³. It deals with complaints about financial businesses that provide services or products in the UK, and can usually help individual or joint consumers regardless of nationality or where they live¹³.

What the ombudsman cannot do is order a firm to pay more than its award limit. If your loss exceeds the limit that applies to your complaint, the ombudsman can order up to that limit and no further. The rest is a matter for the courts, which is covered below.

Complain to your bank first: the eight-week rule

The ombudsman will not take a case until you have complained to the firm.

That eight-week clock is the practical deadline to watch. If your bank has not resolved the claim within eight weeks, you do not have to wait any longer before going to the ombudsman. If it has responded and you disagree, you can refer the complaint.

There is a separate deadline on the claim itself. You must submit your reimbursement claim within 13 months of the final fraudulent payment¹⁰. Claims are subject to that 13-month time limit after the last payment was sent to the scammer as part of the same scam⁹. Miss it and the scheme route closes.

On the deadline for referring a complaint to the ombudsman once you have a final response, the sources give different points. One says within six months of receiving your outcome letter; another says within six months of the date of the final response letter, or eight weeks after the complaint was received¹⁴. Both give six months, but they measure it from different points. Check the deadline printed in your own final response letter and treat the earlier date as the one that matters.

Taking your case to the Financial Ombudsman Service

The ombudsman's remit covers APP fraud complaints specifically. The FCA's dispute resolution rules include any complaint that the respondent did not do enough to prevent, or respond to, an alleged authorised push payment fraud¹⁶. That is the hook: the complaint is not only about whether the scheme cap applies, but about whether the firm did enough.

The regulator confirmed the route when it made the reimbursement rules. If a consumer is unhappy with how their payment firm has assessed their APP scam claim under the policy, they can take their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service¹⁷. The ombudsman has also said it will take the industry code that preceded the mandatory scheme into account as a relevant consideration when determining new consumer complaints about APP scams¹⁸.

The scale of the problem is worth knowing when you weigh up whether to pursue it. In 2024 alone there were around 185,000 APP fraud cases a year involving UK individuals and businesses¹⁹. Losses in the first half of 2021 alone totalled £355 million, which the regulator described as likely to be an underestimate²⁰. By payment channel in 2025, internet banking accounted for £218.5m of APP fraud losses, branch payments £35.8m and telephone banking £20.3m⁵.

To start, you fill in the ombudsman's complaint form. If you are considering using AI to help you complete the form, the ombudsman asks you to read its guidelines on using AI before you start⁸.

How the ombudsman decides and what it can order

The ombudsman decides complaints on what is fair and reasonable in the circumstances of the case, taking the relevant rules and codes into account. For APP scams, that means the reimbursement rules and, where they bear on the case, the earlier industry code¹⁸.

What it can order is compensation, up to its award limit. The limit is £350,000 for complaints about issues after 1 April 2019, rising in line with inflation each year⁷. That is the ceiling on what the ombudsman can require a firm to pay for a single complaint, and it is the reason a loss above £85,000 is not necessarily a loss above the award limit.

The scheme's own cap is separate and lower. The maximum amount that can be claimed for an APP fraud from 7 October 2024 is £85,000²¹. The rules require payment firms to reimburse all in-scope customers who fall victim to APP fraud in most cases, but within that cap¹¹. The £100 excess is a deduction, not a cap: firms can choose to apply a £100 claims excess, except where victims are found to be vulnerable²². By volume the excess impacts approximately 30 per cent of cases, though it represents less than 1 per cent of the total value of APP fraud cases¹⁷.

So there are three numbers to keep apart. The scheme reimburses up to £85,000, less a possible £100 excess¹. The ombudsman's award limit is £350,000 for complaints about issues after 1 April 2019, rising in line with inflation each year⁷. And the underlying loss can be larger than either.

Compensation, interest and tax on what you get back

The scheme has been paying out at a high rate since it began. Between 7 October 2024 and 31 March 2026, 88% (£316m) of the money lost to APP scams was reimbursed to victims². In the first three months of the mandatory scheme, 86% of money lost to APP scams, totalling around £27m, was returned to victims²³.

That is a marked change. In 2022, only 59% of APP fraud losses were returned to victims, either as direct refunds or recovered by the receiving bank²⁴. In the last full year before the voluntary code launched, just 19% of the amount lost by individuals was returned to them, and across all the firms UK Finance collected data for in 2019, just 26% of the amount lost by victims of APP fraud was reimbursed²⁵.

Speed is part of the design. Most APP fraud victims are reimbursed within five business days under the consistent minimum standards²⁶. The official statistics bear that out: 82% of claims were closed within five business days and 98% within 35 business days between 7 October 2024 and 31 March 2026². Scam victims must be reimbursed within five UK business days unless the bank or payment provider needs to gather more information⁹.

On interest and tax, the sources give no figure. Whether interest is added on top of an award, and whether it counts towards the ombudsman's limit, is not stated in the sources here, so no answer can be given. The same applies to the tax treatment of compensation: there is no fact in the sources on it. Both are questions to put to the ombudsman and to HMRC directly.

Where the ombudsman's award limit stops: going to court

The ombudsman's limit is the end of its power, not the end of your options. If your loss exceeds the award limit that applies to your complaint, the ombudsman can order up to that limit and no more⁷. The remainder would have to be pursued through the courts, which is a separate process with its own costs, timescales and risks.

There is a history here worth knowing, because it explains why the numbers in circulation differ. The regulator consulted on the maximum reimbursement limit for APP scam claims and confirmed an upper limit of £415,000 for claims made via Faster Payments and CHAPS in December 2023²⁷. The scheme that actually came into force on 7 October 2024 set the cap at £85,000 instead²¹. The higher figure was consulted on and confirmed at one stage; the lower figure is what applies.

That divergence is why a reader may see £415,000, £350,000, £445,000 and £455,000 in different places. They are not all describing the same thing. The £415,000 was a proposed scheme cap²⁷. The £350,000, £445,000 and £455,000 figures relate to the ombudsman's award limit at different points⁷. The £85,000 is the scheme cap that applies to claims¹.

For a loss above £85,000, the practical sequence is: claim under the scheme up to the cap, complain to your bank about the rest and about how it handled the claim, refer to the ombudsman if you are unhappy, and treat anything above the ombudsman's award limit as a matter for legal advice.