Partially upheld: failure to credit payment; data handling practices complaint against Cabot Credit Management Group Limited trading as Cabot Financial (Europe) Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mr P complained that Cabot unlawfully obtained his current account information when he reported a missing payment in March 2025. Cabot had asked for his account details to trace the payment, which Mr P provided. The investigator found Cabot had not acted wrongly in requesting the information but upheld the complaint for £100 due to Cabot's failure to credit the payment. Mr P rejected this outcome. The ombudsman partially upheld the complaint, finding Cabot acted fairly in requesting and retaining the account information as it was necessary to locate the missing payment and is standard practice for financial businesses. However, the ombudsman confirmed Cabot made an error in failing to credit the payment initially and upheld the £100 compensation award.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that Cabot acted reasonably in requesting Mr P's account information as it was necessary to trace the missing payment, and the request was proportionate to the problem. The retention of account information was also reasonable given it was part of an ongoing dispute and financial businesses typically retain records for six years. However, Cabot made an error in failing to credit the March 2025 payment in the first place. The ombudsman noted that whether data retention complies with data protection rights is a matter for the ICO, not the FOS. The ombudsman could not determine whether Cabot acted illegally, only whether they acted unfairly on a fair and reasonable basis.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website