Upheld: Service failures generally complaint against Monavate Ltd

Decision detail

Summary

Mr H complained that Monavate Ltd failed to provide a physical debit card for his HyperJar e-money account, could not add his virtual card to his digital wallet, experienced app verification problems, and received an inaccurate explanation for a declined transaction at a grocery store. Monavate initially blamed insufficient funds in the groceries jar but later clarified the payment was declined because the merchant identifier did not match the store name Mr H had linked to his account. The ombudsman upheld the complaint, finding Monavate should have been aware that the large retailer operates under different names and should not have expected Mr H to have this knowledge. The ombudsman ordered Monavate to pay £125 compensation for the cumulative distress and inconvenience caused by all the service failures.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman upheld the complaint because Monavate made multiple errors: it failed to clearly communicate about the physical card, did not automatically activate the virtual card as it should have, experienced app verification issues, and provided an inaccurate explanation for the declined transaction. While the payment was ultimately declined due to a merchant identifier mismatch rather than insufficient funds, Monavate should have been aware that a large, well-known retailer operates under different names. The ombudsman found it unreasonable to expect Mr H to have the same knowledge. The cumulative effect of multiple contact attempts, denied access to funds, app problems, and incomplete explanations warranted compensation of £125.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website