Not upheld: Card / payment disputes complaint against National Westminster Bank Public Limited Company

Decision detail

Summary

Ms C complained that NatWest held her liable for transactions made between 30 March and 6 April 2022 that she claimed she did not authorise. Ms C stated she had lost her card during this period. The disputed transactions were authenticated using contactless and Chip & PIN methods. The ombudsman applied the two-part authorisation test under The Payment Services Regulations 2017 and concluded that while Ms C did not make the transactions herself, she most likely consented to them. The ombudsman found no persuasive evidence that a third party could have obtained Ms C's PIN without her knowledge and was not convinced by the spending pattern that a fraudster acting without consent would have followed. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman applied the two-part test of authorisation (authentication and consent) under The Payment Services Regulations 2017. While the transactions were authenticated using Ms C's card and PIN, the key issue was whether Ms C consented to them. The ombudsman found that for a third party to have made these transactions without consent, they would have needed to know Ms C's PIN. The ombudsman was not persuaded that any third party could have obtained the PIN without Ms C's knowledge, as there was no evidence they would have known the personal information associated with the PIN or any other method to obtain it. Additionally, the spending pattern did not suggest a third-party fraudster acting without Ms C's knowledge.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website