Partially upheld: Service failures generally complaint against The Mortgage Works (UK) Plc

Decision detail

Summary

Mr S complained about poor service from TMW when setting up new direct debits on five Buy To Let mortgage accounts after his current account was unexpectedly closed. TMW failed to email promised payment details, routed a call incorrectly, and made errors setting up direct debits on two accounts. Most significantly, TMW incorrectly told Mr S on 20 November that account 4076's November payment had been collected when it had actually failed because TMW was attempting to collect from his old closed bank account. All five accounts entered December in arrears but were cleared by Mr S's manual payments. The ombudsman partially upheld the complaint, finding TMW liable for the misleading information about account 4076 and the compounded errors, ordering an additional £75 compensation and removal of any adverse credit file entries for that account.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that while Mr S had the information needed to make manual payments from 20 November onwards (reducing TMW's liability for four accounts entering arrears), TMW made critical errors regarding account 4076. TMW incorrectly informed Mr S that this account's November DD had been collected when it had actually failed, and the failure occurred because TMW was attempting to collect from Mr S's old closed bank account rather than the new details it should have set up. This represented both a failure to properly set up the new DD and a failure to accurately report the status. The ombudsman also found TMW made an error on account 4792 which Mr S had to identify himself. These compounded errors, particularly the misleading information about account 4076, warranted additional compensation beyond the £75 already paid for that account's error.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website