Not upheld: Section 75 claim rejection and chargeback handling complaint against NewDay Ltd trading as Marbles

Decision detail

Summary

Mr S purchased a used car for £5,000, paying £2,500 via his Marbles credit card to a business V (not directly to the seller D). He claimed D misrepresented the car as HPI clear and single-owner, but a report showed multiple owners and prior damage. Mr S sought a Section 75 refund, which Marbles rejected. The ombudsman found no valid Section 75 claim existed because no debtor-creditor-supplier agreement was established (the payment went to V, not D, with no proven association between them). The ombudsman also determined a chargeback would have been unlikely to succeed due to insufficient evidence of misrepresentation and no clear evidence of defect given the car's age, mileage, discount, and 'sold as seen' condition. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that no valid debtor-creditor-supplier (DCS) agreement existed because there was insufficient evidence of an association between D (the seller) and V (the payment processor) as defined by Section 184 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. Without a valid DCS agreement, Section 75 protection did not apply. Regarding chargeback, the ombudsman determined it would have been unlikely to succeed because: (1) Mr S provided no evidence of D's advertisement claiming HPI clear status or single ownership; (2) the damage report did not establish the car was currently defective; (3) the car's age, high mileage, discount, and 'sold as seen' condition made a successful claim improbable. Therefore, Marbles did not act unfairly in rejecting the claim or in its handling of the chargeback consideration.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website