Not upheld: scam claim and chargeback eligibility complaint against Prepay Technologies Ltd trading as PrePay Solutions (Monese)

Decision detail

Summary

Mr A purchased a gaming account from Mr B for $10,000 in February 2025, then made £1,783 in gaming add-on purchases through his Monese account in May 2025. In July 2025, Mr B took back the gaming account, leaving Mr A without access to the account or the add-ons he had purchased. Mr A claimed this was a scam and asked Monese to reimburse him, but Monese declined to raise a chargeback. The ombudsman found that Mr A was not scammed into making the add-on payments, as he authorised them himself and received the goods paid for, and therefore did not uphold the complaint.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Mr A authorised the payments himself and received the gaming add-ons he paid for. The payments were independent of the dispute regarding access to the gaming account. Since Mr A was not tricked into making the payments and received the goods paid for, the payments were not the result of a scam. Therefore, Monese had no obligation to raise a chargeback or prevent the payments, and could not be held responsible for Mr A's loss of access to the gaming account.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website