Upheld: service failure, facility withdrawal without adequate notice, failure to action customer instructions, failure to maintain accurate contact details complaint against Metro Bank Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Mr and Mrs J complained that Metro Bank Plc withdrew their Security Deposit Box facility without prior notification and failed to action their requests to update contact details and change ownership of the box. When Mrs J visited the branch in August 2025, she discovered the box had been drilled open due to accumulated rental arrears. The ombudsman found that Metro Bank had failed to update Mr J's contact details despite his request in June 2023, should have recognised the contact details were outdated when calls failed, and had allowed a pattern whereby customers only paid arrears during in-person visits. The ombudsman upheld the complaint and ordered Metro Bank to pay a further £400 compensation (total £500) for the distress and inconvenience caused by these repeated service failures.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Metro Bank had established a pattern of allowing arrears to accumulate until customers visited in person to pay them, which would have led Mr and Mrs J to expect they could continue this practice. On the balance of probabilities, Mr J likely did request to update his contact details in June 2023, and had Metro Bank actioned this, it could have contacted him about the arrears. The failed calls to his mobile number should have alerted Metro Bank that his contact details were outdated. The withdrawal of the facility without adequate notification, combined with the failure to action the ownership transfer request and provide consistent information, constituted repeated service failings that caused foreseeable harm.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website