Not upheld: unauthorised transactions / disputed payments complaint against Barclays Bank UK PLC

Decision detail

Summary

Mr M complained that Barclays refused to refund two cash withdrawals of £250 each made from his account after his phone was stolen. The transactions were made via Apple Pay using his debit card PIN, which required access to his mobile banking app to obtain. The ombudsman found that while Mr M's device could have been accessed by a third party, the mobile banking app passcode was separate, had not been disclosed to anyone, and was unlikely to have been observed. Given that the mobile banking app was accessed at 1.14am to view the PIN before the transactions at 1.20am and 1.21am, the ombudsman concluded there was no plausible explanation for how an unauthorised party could have made the transactions and upheld Barclays' position that the transactions were authorised.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that to make the disputed transactions, an unauthorised party would have needed access to Mr M's device, his debit card PIN, and his mobile banking app passcode. While the device passcode could potentially have been observed, the mobile banking passcode was different and had not been disclosed to anyone. The login to mobile banking at 1.14am to view the PIN, combined with the fact that the last use of this passcode was on 12 December and Mr M had used biometrics since then, made it implausible that an unauthorised third party could have obtained this passcode. Therefore, the ombudsman concluded there was no plausible explanation for how someone other than Mr M could have made the transactions.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website