Not upheld: unauthorized payment transactions / disputed transactions complaint against Modulr FS Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Miss O disputed £201.96 in transactions made via Apple Pay to a Thai merchant, claiming she did not authorize them. She had tokenized her HyperJar card to Apple Pay in October 2024 using a one-time passcode that she did not share. The ombudsman found the transactions were properly authenticated and that Miss O either made them herself or provided actual or apparent authority to a third party, as there was no evidence of compromise to her OTP or mobile device. The complaint was not upheld and no refund was ordered.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

Under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, a payment is authorized if both authentication and consent are present. The transactions were authenticated correctly. The ombudsman found no evidence that the OTP or mobile device were compromised, and Miss O's security practices were sound. Given that Apple Pay transactions do not require the user to be physically present in the merchant's location, the fact that Miss O was in the UK while the merchant was in Thailand was not determinative. On the balance of probabilities, Miss O either made the transactions herself or provided actual or apparent authority to a third party to do so.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website