Not upheld: service disruption and complaint handling complaint against Nationwide Building Society

Decision detail

Summary

Miss A complained that Nationwide Building Society prevented her from accessing her online banking account on 27-28 February, which she claimed prevented her from crediting her child's school account. Nationwide did not uphold the complaint, and the FOS investigator agreed. The ombudsman found that audit trail records showed Miss A successfully logged in on 27 February at 20:35 and made a £600 payment transfer that evening, despite receiving one-time passwords with some delay. She was not impacted by the 28 February morning system issues as she made no login attempts during that time. The ombudsman also found Nationwide's complaint handling to be reasonable, including its correction of contacting Miss A by telephone despite her email-only preference. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that although Miss A experienced a delay in receiving one-time passwords, the audit trail evidence demonstrated she successfully logged in at 20:35 on 27 February and made a payment that evening. Regarding the 28 February morning issues, Nationwide's records showed Miss A did not attempt to login during the affected time period. The ombudsman considered Nationwide's complaint handling reasonable, noting it corrected its communication method error and gathered necessary information to understand the complaint.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website