Not upheld: unfair administration; alleged wrongful interest charges; alleged payment misallocation; poor handling of statement date change request complaint against Barclays Bank UK PLC, trading as Tesco Bank

Decision detail

Summary

Mr H complained that Tesco Bank unfairly administered his credit card, specifically regarding interest charges and payment allocation issues, as well as problems changing his statement date. Mr H had attempted to pay off purchases quickly while maintaining a 0% balance transfer, but was charged interest. Tesco Bank partially upheld the complaint regarding the statement date issue, paying £75 compensation, but rejected claims of wrongful interest charges and payment misallocation. The ombudsman found that Mr H was making payments before statements were produced, causing payments to be applied to previous balances per standard credit card practice and Tesco Bank's terms. The ombudsman did not uphold the complaint, finding the £75 compensation and CRA assurance already provided by Tesco Bank to be fair and reasonable.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Mr H was making payments before his statements were produced, meaning payments were technically made for transactions not yet billed. According to Tesco Bank's terms, payments are applied to items that have appeared on a received statement before items not yet appearing on a statement. This is standard credit card practice. The ombudsman concluded there was no evidence of wrongful interest charges or payment misallocation, but rather a misunderstanding of how the credit card operates. The ombudsman acknowledged that Tesco Bank handled the statement date change issue poorly and appropriately remedied this with £75 compensation and CRA assurance.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website