CIFO reports rise in complex fraud and scam complaints
FRAUD and scam complaints are becoming increasingly sophisticated, the Channel Island Financial Ombudsman has said in its latest report.
CIFO received more than 560 complaints last year – higher than any other time in the last six years. There were 336 cases opened. About half the cases related to banking, which mostly related to Jersey, while nearly half related to insurance, which were mostly connected to Guernsey.
In regards to banking, CIFO reported that as well as fraud and scams, there had been problems with accounts being blocked due to suspected fraudulent activity.
‘Bank account closures were also prevalent and arose where customers were not locally resident or where a change in the bank’s risk appetite had occurred,’ the report stated.
‘In some cases, banks were simply not providing a reason to their customers for closing their accounts.’
It was also noted that there were complaints about customers having difficulty contacting their bank, especially when a suspected fraud had taken place on their bank accounts.
The report included case studies of problems faced, including a romance scam where a man sent more than £120,000 to a fraudster, and a cryptocurrency fraud, where a man was convinced to invest £17,000 by someone they met on social media.
In regards to insurance complaints, these were predominantly due to the relocation of several UK insurance providers to Guernsey, which brought complaints about their business into CIFO’s remit.
The most common type of insurance complaints received in 2023 involved home emergency insurance, in particular boiler repair claims.
CIFO also saw an increase in home insurance complaints where customers felt that the value of claims paid by their insurers were too low.
Some of these were due to the price increase of building material and labour costs.
The ombudsman continued to see health insurance complaints involving private medical insurance and the non-payment of medical claims and delays in processing the payments due to issues with insurance companies’ own internal payment systems.
CIFO reviews and investigates unresolved complaints from complainants about financial services providers in or from within Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark.
