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Case 3 of 19 · Level 1
Current account
The weekend the bank went dark
The file · about 5 minutes
The complaint
The customer's bank had an IT failure that lasted a few days. The customer says their card was declined when the bill came at a family meal out, so their parents paid and lent them money for their bills. A direct debit bounced and the banking app stopped updating. The bank offered £25, and the customer says that is not enough.
The firm's answer
The bank apologised for the outage and offered £25 for the inconvenience. That was its answer to the complaint.
Evidence in the file
Exhibit A · The bank's reply
An apology, and £25 offered for the inconvenience of the outage.
Exhibit B · The customer's account
Card declined at a restaurant, the bill paid by family, a direct debit missed, and an app that stopped updating.
The bank's card records for the outage
The records show no declined card payments at all, and nothing to suggest the card was refused at the restaurant. The card would have worked throughout the outage.
The direct debit history
One payment from the account was missed, and the bank accepts the outage caused it.
What the app showed that weekend
The app stopped updating properly that weekend, which made it look as if the card and cash machines could not be used.
Uphold the complaint, or side with the firm?
The ruling
Given by the ombudsman
Partly upheld
Why
The outage caused one missed payment and an app that was not updating, and £25 did not cover that inconvenience. But the bank's records showed the card was never declined, so the bank was not held responsible for what happened at the restaurant.
What the firm had to do
Pay £75 more for the inconvenience, on top of the £25 already offered.
What an adjudicator takes from this. Each part of a complaint stands on its own evidence. One part can succeed while another falls away.
Rewritten in our own words from a case the ombudsman published.
What is fair and reasonable is a judgement. The ombudsman gives one; people who read the same file often give another, and this game is about how people weigh the same facts, not about being right. Built from cases the Financial Ombudsman Service and other bodies have published, and from Docketory's own files, rewritten in our own words with every name removed. Docketory is not connected with any of them, and this game is not advice on your own case.
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