Not upheld: service failure and communication method complaint against Capital One (Europe) plc

Decision detail

Summary

Mr K complained that Capital One treated him unfairly when he could not use his mobile app to access his credit card account and when the firm issued its complaint response by email rather than calling him. Capital One's agent provided reasonable support by suggesting troubleshooting steps and escalating the issue to technical support, though the problem was not immediately resolved. During the complaint call, Mr K agreed that Capital One could send the complaint response via email. The ombudsman found Capital One had acted fairly, as Mr K had explicitly accepted email communication for the complaint response, and therefore did not uphold the complaint.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Capital One provided reasonable support in attempting to resolve the app issue, taking appropriate steps including escalation to technical support. Although the core dispute concerned whether Capital One should have called Mr K rather than emailing the complaint response, the ombudsman determined this was immaterial because Mr K had explicitly agreed to receive the response via email during the complaint call. The ombudsman acknowledged Mr K's reasonable adjustment requests related to his mental health but concluded that his specific acceptance of email communication for this complaint meant Capital One acted fairly.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website