Not upheld: Complaints handling failures complaint against NewDay Ltd trading as Fluid Credit Card

Decision detail

Summary

Mr W complained that a default notice email from NewDay caused him unnecessary stress and that the firm's financial difficulties team were unable to assist with his complaint, requiring transfer to another department. Mr W had contacted NewDay in November 2025 after losing his job and was placed on a repayment plan with zero disposable income. After approximately two months without improvement, NewDay sent a default notice email on 1 January 2026. The ombudsman found that NewDay acted fairly in sending a clear default notice after a reasonable forbearance period and that its internal process of segmenting team access to automatically generated correspondence was reasonable business practice. The complaint was not upheld and no remedy was ordered.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that NewDay acted fairly in sending a clear default notice after approximately two months without improvement in Mr W's circumstances. The ombudsman considered that regulatory guidance on forbearance is intended to provide a reasonable breathing space, not to defer debts indefinitely. The ombudsman reasoned that the clear subject line of the email was appropriate given the seriousness of account default, and that it was reasonable business practice for NewDay to segment which teams could access automatically generated correspondence. The ombudsman noted that while Mr W's stress was understandable, the email's clarity and attention-grabbing nature suggested it had achieved its legitimate purpose.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website