Not upheld: payment method rejection and account sale following non-payment complaint against Barclays Bank UK PLC trading as Barclaycard

Decision detail

Summary

Mr N complained that Barclaycard refused to accept his Bill of Exchange as payment and sold his account to a debt company shortly thereafter. Mr N's credit card account had fallen into arrears in December 2024, and despite four months of contact from Barclaycard, he did not make payment by the 13 April 2025 deadline. On 28 April 2025, Mr N sent a Bill of Exchange citing the Bills of Exchange Act 1882, but Barclaycard did not accept this as a valid payment method and proceeded to default the account on 29 April 2025 and sell it on 16 May 2025. The ombudsman found that Barclaycard acted fairly given Mr N's prolonged non-engagement, his use of an unaccepted payment method, and the fact that the account sale was already in progress before the Bill of Exchange was received. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Barclaycard acted fairly because: (1) Mr N had failed to make payments for over four months and missed the 13 April 2025 deadline; (2) the Bill of Exchange was not an accepted payment method under the account terms; (3) the account sale process was already underway before the Bill of Exchange was received; (4) Mr N's attempt to pay via Bill of Exchange did not constitute a valid dispute under CONC 7.14.1 because he was attempting payment rather than disputing the debt; and (5) even if Barclaycard had communicated with Mr N about the rejected payment method, it would not have changed the outcome given his prolonged non-engagement.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website