Not upheld: Account administration errors complaint against Santander UK Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Mr R complained that Santander failed to process his address change request, failed to update him on his account status, and blocked his account from online visibility, claiming this caused financial and emotional harm and damaged his credit file. Santander had no record of receiving the address change request and placed a precautionary block due to suspected fraudulent activity, sending an SMS notification. The ombudsman found no evidence of the address change request being sent and determined that Mr R, having made transactions after the alleged move and logged into his account twice thereafter, could not reasonably have concluded he had no active credit liability. The complaint was not upheld, and no remedy was ordered.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found no evidence that Santander received Mr R's address change request, as no proof of postage was provided. The precautionary block was placed fairly to protect the account from fraudulent activity and an SMS notification would have been sent. Mr R logged into his online portal twice after the transactions were made, and it was not reasonable for him to conclude he had no active credit liability given he had accrued debt in July 2022. The ombudsman concluded that neither the address change failure nor the account visibility issue resulted from Santander's fault, and that Mr R remained liable for the debt he had accrued.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website