Upheld: poor service, failure to respect customer request to cease contact, inadequate handling of vulnerable customer complaint against Barclays Bank UK PLC
Financial Ombudsman decision DRN-6288364 of 2026-06-01T00:00:00+00:00. poor service, failure to respect customer request to cease contact, inadequate handling of vulnerable customer complaint against Barclays Bank UK PLC. Outcome: Upheld.
Decision detail
| Reference | DRN-6288364 |
|---|---|
| Decision date | 2026-06-01T00:00:00+00:00 |
| Firm | Barclays Bank UK PLC |
| Product | current account |
| Claim type | poor service, failure to respect customer request to cease contact, inadequate handling of vulnerable customer |
| Outcome | Upheld |
| Remedy | Barclays Bank UK PLC must pay Mr K an additional £300 in compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused (in addition to the £100 already paid and the £200 agreed by Barclays). |
Summary
Mr K complained about poor service from Barclays when he contacted the bank via chat messaging regarding a payment issue. After Mr K explicitly asked the agent to stop messaging him due to distress, the agent sent two further messages. Additionally, Barclays could not explain why Mr K's initial chat messages were missing from its systems. Mr K, who has recorded vulnerabilities affecting his mental health, experienced significant distress when notifications from the unwanted messages appeared on multiple devices. The ombudsman upheld the complaint, finding Barclays should have respected Mr K's request to stop contact given its knowledge of his vulnerabilities. While the full extent of mental health impact was not foreseeable, the ombudsman determined that £300 compensation was appropriate for the considerable immediate distress and inconvenience caused over several days.
The Ombudsman's reasoning
The ombudsman found that Barclays failed to provide adequate service by continuing to message Mr K after he explicitly requested to stop, despite having recorded notes about his vulnerabilities. While the technical issue causing missing chat messages was not deliberate, Barclays should have investigated it more thoroughly. The ombudsman determined that while Barclays should have foreseen some distress and inconvenience, the full extent of impact on Mr K's mental health was not reasonably foreseeable, as Barclays had not been specifically informed of the degree to which further issues would affect him. The compensation was increased to £300 to reflect the considerable immediate impact over several days requiring support from his carer and counsellor, though the ombudsman rejected claims that longer-term impact was attributable to Barclays' actions rather than the complaint process itself.
How this compares
| Group | Decisions | Uphold rate |
|---|---|---|
| Barclays Bank UK PLC, all decisions | 11,165 | 22% |
Source
Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website