Will my bank refund me if I was tricked into sending money?

Usually yes. Since 7 October 2024, UK payment firms have been required to reimburse victims of authorised push payment (APP) fraud — where a scammer tricks you into sending money yourself — up to £85,000, normally within five business days. You can be refused only in narrow circumstances: if you were complicit in the fraud, or if the firm can prove you acted with gross negligence. That is a high bar, and the burden of proof sits with the bank, not you.

What kind of scam does this actually cover?

The rules cover authorised payments: you were deceived into pressing send yourself. That includes the common patterns — a fake "your account is compromised, move your money to a safe account" call, an invoice with swapped bank details, a purchase that never arrives, a romance or investment scam.

It is a narrower scheme than people assume. According to the Payment Systems Regulator, reimbursement applies to payments made over Faster Payments or CHAPS, where both the sending and receiving accounts are held in the UK.

Situation	Covered by this scheme?
Bank transfer to a UK account, you were tricked into sending it	Yes
Someone used your card without you	No — that is unauthorised card fraud, handled separately
A card purchase that went wrong	No — chargeback or Section 75 instead
Cash or cheque	No
Transfer to an account outside the UK	No
Your bank goes bust	No — that is FSCS deposit protection

Card, cash and cheque payments are excluded because they already have their own protections. That distinction matters: if you paid by card, you are in a different process with different deadlines, not this one.

How much do I get back, and how fast?

The headline figures:

• Up to £85,000 per claim is the mandatory maximum. A firm may pay more voluntarily.
• Five business days is the normal deadline for reimbursement once you report it. A firm can stop the clock while it gathers information it reasonably needs to assess the claim.
• Up to £100 may be deducted as an excess per claim — though a firm can choose not to charge it.
• 13 months from the last related payment is the window for bringing a claim.

Two details are worth knowing. First, the excess does not apply to vulnerable customers — including people whose age, health, disability or lack of financial resilience made them more susceptible. Second, the cost of reimbursing you is split 50/50 between the bank that sent the payment and the bank that received it, which is the mechanism designed to give receiving banks a reason to police the accounts scammers use. You claim from your own bank either way; the split is their problem, not yours.

When can a bank refuse to refund me?

There are two exceptions, and both are narrow.

Complicity. If you were party to the fraud, you get nothing. This is aimed at money-mule arrangements, not at people who were fooled.

Gross negligence — formally, a breach of the consumer standard of caution. The PSR's guidance sets this as "a significant degree of carelessness", well beyond simply being careless or naive. In practice a firm would point to things like ignoring a specific, tailored warning it gave you at the moment of payment, or failing to respond to reasonable requests for information during the claim.

Three things follow that are easy to miss:

• Being embarrassed is not gross negligence. Falling for a convincing, well-rehearsed scam is exactly what the scheme exists to cover.
• The burden of proof is on the firm. It must show you met the bar; you do not have to prove you were careful.
• It cannot be applied to vulnerable customers at all.

If your bank refuses and you disagree, escalate. The Financial Ombudsman Service considers APP fraud complaints, its decisions bind the firm if you accept them, and it is free to you.

What should I do the moment I realise?

1. Tell your bank immediately — in the app or by phone. Speed matters, because money can sometimes still be recalled before it is moved on.
2. Report it to Action Fraud, or to Police Scotland if you are in Scotland. Your bank may ask for the reference.
3. Keep everything: messages, call times, the account details you were given, screenshots of any warning you were shown. Warnings are the ground on which a gross-negligence argument would be fought.
4. Make the claim with the bank that sent the money, not the receiving one.
5. If refused, ask for the reason in writing, then take it to the Financial Ombudsman.

Is any of this about to change?

Possibly, so check before relying on the specifics. The reimbursement requirement is under review, and the £85,000 cap, the 50/50 split and the consumer standard of caution have all been raised as candidates for recalibration. Separately, the Payment Systems Regulator is being consolidated into the Financial Conduct Authority; existing directions remain in force through that transition, so the protections continue, but the body publishing them changes.

The practical upshot: the shape of the scheme is stable, the exact numbers may move. Confirm the current limit on the regulator's own page before you rely on a figure.

In short

If a scammer talked you into making a UK bank transfer, your bank should refund you up to £85,000 within five business days, minus at most a £100 excess, and it can only refuse if it can prove gross negligence or complicity. Report it the moment you realise, keep every warning and message, claim from the bank that sent the money, and take a refusal to the Financial Ombudsman rather than accepting it.