Not upheld: irresponsible lending complaint against Gracombex Ltd trading as The Money Platform (TMP)

Decision detail

Summary

Mr J complained that TMP irresponsibly arranged four P2P loans between June 2024 and May 2025, claiming better checks would have identified he was overindebted, gambling, and using crypto currency. TMP's checks included income verification, housing costs, non-discretionary expenditure estimates, and credit checks, which showed no adverse information except a historic default. The ombudsman found TMP's checks were proportionate for all four loans given the lending terms and information available at each stage, and that Mr J's gambling and crypto use were not apparent from the checks conducted. The complaint was not upheld, and no remedy was ordered.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that TMP's checks were proportionate given the terms of lending and what TMP identified about Mr J's financial circumstances. For loans one and two, the checks were reasonable for early-stage lending. For loan three, although more detailed checks were warranted due to the increased lending amount and frequency of requests, TMP did conduct appropriate checks and the credit information it obtained at the time showed only one active short term lending account, which was reasonably believed to be TMP's own previous loan. For loan four, the checks remained proportionate as Mr J had a perfect repayment record, the loan amount was lower, and his total debt had decreased. The ombudsman rejected the argument that TMP should have been aware of Mr J's gambling and crypto currency use, as this information was not apparent from the checks conducted.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website