Not upheld: notification failure and chargeback defence opportunity complaint against Paymentsense Limited (trading as Dojo)

Decision detail

Summary

R, a partnership with a merchant services agreement with Dojo, complained that Dojo sent a chargeback notification to an incorrect email address (email address 2), preventing R from defending the claim and resulting in financial loss. R argued that email address 2 was secondary and had been taken over by another party, and that Dojo should have used only email address 1 or pursued alternative contact methods. Dojo maintained that both email addresses were legitimately provided at account opening and that R failed to inform it of the loss of access to email address 2. The ombudsman upheld Dojo's position, finding that R bore responsibility for maintaining current contact information and that Dojo acted in accordance with its terms and conditions.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Dojo was entitled to use either email address provided at account opening in accordance with the terms and conditions. Since R failed to inform Dojo that it had lost access to email address 2 or request its removal, Dojo had no reasonable way of knowing not to use it. R, as a business, bore responsibility for maintaining up-to-date contact information with Dojo. The ombudsman rejected R's argument that an established pattern of using only email address 1 should have prevented Dojo from using email address 2, noting that email address 2 had been used in past communications and that Dojo was entitled to use any address it had on file.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website