---
title: "UK Banks Must Repay Scam Victims, but Canadian Banks Do Not Have To"
description: "A CBC Marketplace report followed the same courier scam across two countries, where only the British victim got her money back."
author: "rews desk"
published: 2026-10-23T08:00:00Z
modified: 2026-10-23T11:43:02Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/uk-banks-must-repay-scam-victims-but-canadian-banks-do-not-h-f2b644
language: en
tags: ["fraud", "banking", "canada", "uk", "scams", "us"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# UK Banks Must Repay Scam Victims, but Canadian Banks Do Not Have To

*A CBC Marketplace report followed the same courier scam across two countries, where only the British victim got her money back.*

By rews desk · October 23, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/uk-banks-must-repay-scam-victims-but-canadian-banks-do-not-h-f2b644

## In brief

- CBC’s Marketplace compared two victims of the same courier scam, one in Canada and one in Britain
- British banks must reimburse most scam victims, often within days; Canadian banks have no such obligation
- Toronto’s Asif Mohammed lost $7,200 and recovered only part; England’s Samantha Bradshaw got back her £11,000
- A scammer told Marketplace he earns up to £5,000 per victim and believes UK banks absorb the cost through fees
- Canada’s finance minister cited a new financial crimes agency but did not commit to mandatory reimbursement

Two people fell for the same bank-impersonation scam over the past year, one in Toronto and one in England’s East Midlands, and where they lived settled what happened next, [CBC’s Marketplace reported](https://cbc.ca/news/marketplace/bank-scam-victims-9.7387116) on Friday.

Asif Mohammed lost $7,200 this spring and has not gotten it all back. Samantha Bradshaw was out £11,000, nearly $21,000 Canadian, and her bank returned the full sum within days. British law requires banks to reimburse most customers who lose money to scams. Canadian law places no such obligation on banks.

Mr. Mohammed, a Toronto engineer, got a call that appeared to come from his bank, Tangerine. A woman claiming to be from its fraud investigations department said someone had tried to use his debit card at a Best Buy in Edmonton, and that the case had been passed to Toronto police, who would collect the card as evidence. A courier arrived at his worksite, and Mr. Mohammed handed it over, without the PIN. Minutes later his wife, Salwa Sultana, texted that $1,200 had left the account. “At that point, I realized that I’ve made a big mistake,” Mr. Mohammed said.

![One hand offers a red credit card to an outstretched hand in a dark suit, whose shadow forms a devil’s tail against a teal background.](https://rews.cc/img/3deb3f63ccccd2cf24edb57b012a096ab3cd5c81.webp)

Ms. Bradshaw’s call, at her home last fall, lasted four hours and followed the same script: compromised cards, a courier at the door, purchases made in her name. The scammers knew where she lived. The police emergency operator told her to lock her doors. “‘Make sure everybody is safe,’” she recalled being told. “And then it was real panic, real crying, real horrible emotions coming through. My trust was completely gone.” Within days, under Britain’s reimbursement rules, her bank covered the entire loss.

After months of pleading, Mr. Mohammed and Ms. Sultana reached a confidential settlement with Tangerine that does not cover their entire loss. The bank declined to discuss the case but said it uses “fraud monitoring, security controls, client education… to identify and help prevent unusual account activity.” Major Canadian police services have publicly warned they would never send a courier to collect debit or credit cards.

Andrei Skorobogatov, who advised on the British rules and now works with the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, said the public “will probably struggle to be able to detect \[a scam\] in a way that the bank with their highly sophisticated detection mechanisms are in a much better place to do.” Under the rules, in force for two years, the sending and receiving banks each pay half of a reimbursement, except in cases of extreme negligence.

![Gold coins fall between two classical bank buildings perched on opposite ends of a curved, broken bridge against a blue background.](https://rews.cc/img/7f8d4f898d4caedb6f6e7e2dc28abfb5a595237a.webp)

Chris Ainsley, head of fraud risk management at Santander, Britain’s third-largest bank, told Marketplace the rules have “pushed financial institutions” — “a signal for us to take extra action to prevent more fraud and stop more at source.” The bank runs machine-learning checks against hundreds of thousands of recorded scams and calls or messages customers in real time to “break the spell that the fraudsters put them under,” he said. Most British bank transfers still clear in under 10 seconds; in Canada they can take days.

The scam business answered for itself. A fraudster calling himself “Cameron,” his face hidden by a mask and sunglasses, told Marketplace in a video call that he makes up to £5,000, about $9,400 Canadian, from each victim, and showed no sympathy for them. He said he believes the British rules simply pass his takings on to the banks, which recover the money through fees charged to all customers.

Canada’s finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, pointed to new steps, including Bill C-29, introduced this year to create a Financial Crimes Agency, but stopped short of committing to bank reimbursement. “I would say we need to consult. There’s many actors. There’s the telecoms, there’s the banks, there’s other people in that ecosystem.”

Mr. Champagne said specially trained federal officers now work embedded with police in Surrey and in parts of Ontario to make arrests and prevent fraud. “We put boots on the ground,” he said. “And that has been the most effective thing because… it’s about following the money.”