A customer of Santander Bank lost £60,000 after transferring funds to a criminal impersonating the bank’s head of fraud, Chris Ainsley.
The incident began when the customer received a text message asking her to confirm a £500 payment, to which she replied ‘No’. Soon after, she received a call from a number that appeared to belong to Santander. The caller, pretending to be Chris Ainsley, introduced himself as the bank’s fraud team leader.
The impersonator claimed that the customer had confirmed the £500 payment was fraudulent and warned her that further payments were being attempted. He told her that a new ‘safe account’ had been created and urged her to transfer the balance of her current account to this new account immediately.
Following the scammer’s suggestion, the customer checked Chris Ainsley’s name on LinkedIn and, believing she was acting under legitimate guidance, transferred over £60,000 to the fraudster’s account. The scammer also instructed her to mislead the bank about the purpose of her transfers to avoid detection.
After the call ended, the criminal cut off all communication. When the customer did not receive her new online banking details after a few days, she reached out to Santander and learned that she had fallen victim to a scam.
While banks have had inconsistent records in reimbursing customers who suffer from authorized push payment fraud, Santander decided to cover the losses in this case “due to the individual circumstances.”
Santander reported £10.2 million in impersonation scams from January to March this year, an increase of 11% compared to the same period last year, with the average reported loss per customer at £6,906 for that timeframe.
Chris Ainsley remarked, “Scammers leave no stone unturned in tricking victims. As someone dedicated to protecting customers from fraud at Santander, it was surprising to discover that individuals were impersonating me. This serves as a reminder that no legitimate bank representative would ever rush you into transferring funds to another account.”