Not upheld: Service failures generally complaint against Caxton Payments Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mr S complained that Caxton Payments Limited failed to deliver two replacement prepaid travel cards, leaving him unable to access £300 in his account while traveling abroad in June 2024. Mr S also complained about Caxton's lack of tracking systems, inability to offer courier delivery or in-office collection, unprofessional communication, and a missing email notification. The ombudsman found that Caxton had appropriately sent the cards by first-class post, but delivery failure was caused by the third-party postal service and therefore outside Caxton's control. The ombudsman rejected complaints about Caxton's commercial processes as outside the ombudsman's remit and found no evidence of unprofessional conduct. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman determined that once cards entered the postal system, delivery was outside Caxton's control and therefore Caxton could not be held responsible for non-delivery by a third-party postal service. The ombudsman found that sending cards by first-class post is standard practice among financial service providers. Regarding the missing email notification for the September 2023 card, the ombudsman concluded on the balance of probabilities that Mr S had contacted Caxton to request the card manually (evidenced by simultaneous account logins), and therefore no automatic email was required. The ombudsman found that complaints about Caxton's commercial decisions regarding delivery methods and collection options were outside the ombudsman's remit. No evidence of unprofessional conduct was found.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website