Not upheld: irresponsible lending and inadequate safeguards against disguised gambling transactions complaint against Capital One (Europe) plc

Decision detail

Summary

Mr C complained that Capital One failed to prevent or intervene with multiple credit card transactions made to an online overseas casino in November 2023, which were disguised through merchant masking and incorrect merchant codes. Capital One verified the transactions were authorised by Mr C and not fraudulent, but did not identify them as gambling-related. The ombudsman found it would not be proportionate for Capital One to manually research merchants or prevent transactions based solely on them being overseas, and that Capital One could only know about the gambling if Mr C had notified them. Although Mr C later indicated vulnerability and reckless spending on 2 December 2023, this was after the transactions had occurred. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Capital One could only know Mr C was gambling if he notified them, since the merchants were not using accurate gambling merchant codes. It would not be proportionate for Capital One to manually review accounts and research every merchant in case they had misclassified themselves. Making multiple transactions to overseas merchants does not in itself require further action. Capital One did verify the transactions were authorised and not fraudulent. While Mr C indicated vulnerability on 2 December 2023, Capital One could not have been aware of this prior to the transactions being made, and the merchants' use of incorrect merchant codes and names meant Capital One could not have identified the gambling activity.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website