LANDSCAPE gardener David Hunt says he feels embarrassed and let down by the banks after crooks conned him out of nearly £10,000 in a payment transfer scam, the day his mother-in-law died.

The 61-year-old, who lives near Chichester in West Sussex, was caught out by a scam back in April this year and his bank Natwest has only been able to recover £422 of the £9,690 lost.

A new code of practice to better protect victims of push payment fraud is due to be announced this Friday by the payment watchdog, following the revelation that scammers are conning people out of nearly £1million a day.

It's believed this will see customers given timely warnings if banks notice suspicious activity with banks having to refund victims if they fail to meet the minimum standards.

David said: "I feel stupid, embarrassed, and let down by a system that seems to have no will to bring crooks to justice, therefore encouraging them."

Last April he was contacted by a scammer claiming to be from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) who told David that his recently filed self-assessment tax return had been sent to the wrong bank account.

David, a self-employed landscape gardener, said the fraudster knew his name, which lead to him believing the call was genuine.

He also recalled that he had paid different HMRC bank accounts in the past, which backed up the fraudster's story.

But two days later, when no refund of the original payment had been received by David, alarm bells began ring.

He immediately rang HMRC and contacted his bank.

But by that time, NatWest said it was only able to recover £422 from the fraudster's bank, which was with Barclays.

David said: "I got caught by the scam the day my mother in law died.

"I was initially unsure but I thought that no-one would risk prosecution and the money could easily be recovered as I had the person's bank details.

"But it seems the scammers knew that no-one would do anything about it."

Sadly, David isn't the first person to be caught out by such a scam.

The Sun has previously reported how a grandmother had her £40,000 life savings stolen by scammers pretending to be NatWest.

Meanwhile new figures published this week by trade body UK Finance reveal that nearly £1million has been lost to victims of bank transfer scams EVERY DAY in the first six months of this year.

And the problem is that banks don't seem to be doing enough to help.

UK Finance's data showed that just £31million of £145.4million lost in transfers to crooks in the first half of 2018 has been refunded.

Consumer group Which? submitted a so-called "super complaint" to the regulator in 2016 over concerns that bank transfer victims are not given enough protection.

Complaints body, the Financial Ombudsman Service, has also been equally damning of banks' seeming reluctance to not only help victims of this type of fraud, but also to blame them.

Caroline Wayman, chief ombudsman and chief executive of the Financial Ombudsman Service, said: “It’s not fair to automatically call a customer grossly negligent simply because they’ve fallen for a scam.

"That’s especially true in light of the sophisticated way criminals exploit banks’ security systems – and convince customers that their money is at risk."

When The Sun Online contacted David's bank NatWest, it told us there was nothing more it could do and that it had contacted the fraudster's bank as soon as they heard from David.

A spokesperson said: "We sympathise with our customer who has been the victim of a scam and appreciate that this has been a very distressing experience for him.

“We take our responsibilities to preventing scams very seriously and would remind customers to remain vigilant against any type of scam.”

When The Sun took David's case to Barclays, we received a similar response.

A Barclays spokesperson said: "As soon as this matter was brought to our attention, we acted swiftly in order to recover any funds that remained in the account.

"Regrettably by the time we were made aware of the fraud, only £422.26 remained in the account to be returned to Mr Hunt. The account has since been closed."

When The Sun pushed Barclays on why it couldn't do more considering it knew the account holders details, it told us: "Appropriate documentation was presented when the account was opened in 2012 and Barclays had no way of knowing that the account would be used as a mule for fraudulent purposes."

A HMRC spokesperson told The Sun: “If a customer makes a payment to an incorrect HMRC bank account in error, HMRC will not ask the customer to make a further payment to the correct bank account.

“HMRC will arrange to have the customer’s payment transferred to the correct account and update the customer’s record.”

The spokesperson added: “HMRC will call people about outstanding tax bills, and sometimes use automated messages, but it would include your taxpayer reference number.”

David also reported his case to national crime reporting agency Action Fraud.

But it told us that his case wasn't passed onto a crime reviewer as it didn't meet the organisation's investigation threshold, which covers factors such as whether the case is linked to other complaints the body has received.