Not upheld: Card / payment disputes complaint against AMERICAN EXPRESS SERVICES EUROPE LIMITED

Decision detail

Summary

A limited company complained that AmEx failed to recover a duplicate payment made to an airline for a flight booking. Mr A claimed he made two bookings due to an airline system error and sought a chargeback for the first payment. AmEx raised the dispute but did not proceed after the airline provided evidence showing the bookings had different passenger names. Mr A later raised a second dispute regarding a boarding refusal, which AmEx rejected as out of time. The Ombudsman found AmEx acted reasonably in both instances: the first dispute lacked sufficient evidence of duplication, and the second was raised outside the 120-day chargeback timeframe. The complaint was not upheld.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The Ombudsman found that AmEx acted reasonably in not pursuing the first chargeback because the airline's evidence showing different passenger names on each booking created sufficient doubt about whether a duplicate booking claim would succeed, particularly given A's failure to provide further supporting information when requested. Regarding the second dispute, the Ombudsman determined it was raised outside the 120-day timeframe required by chargeback rules, and even if it had been timely, there was insufficient evidence of the boarding refusal to suggest the chargeback would have succeeded. The Ombudsman emphasised that chargebacks are not guaranteed to succeed and that card issuers are not unreasonable in declining to pursue disputes with weak prospects of success.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website