A scam victim who lost nearly £10,000 received just £1.27 back from her bank.
The unnamed woman was tricked into transferring £9,970 to a fraudster posing as HM Revenue & Customs last month.
Money Mail has repeatedly warned of bogus HMRC staff threatening victims with jail unless they repay fake tax debts.
Threat: Money Mail has repeatedly warned of bogus HMRC staff threatening victims with jail unless they repay fake tax debts
In the first three months of this year alone 156,522 scam calls have been reported to HMRC.
Halifax initially refused to refund her despite signing up to a code that promises fairer treatment to scam victims. Weeks later just £1.27 was recovered.
Gareth Shaw, from consumer group Which?, says: ‘All too often we see firms treating bank transfer scam victims unfairly and inconsistently, pointing the finger of blame at the customer and dodging their responsibility to reimburse their losses.’
A Halifax spokesman says the customer made no attempt to verify the caller, nor the details of the payment to ‘HMRC’ which she stated was a payment to ‘friends and family’.
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