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Santander UK Plc

Financial Ombudsman decision DRN1650811 Not upheld

The Ombudsman does not print a decision date. The date above is the deadline the consumer was given to accept or reject the decision, which is set about a month after it was issued. It is reliable to the year, not to the month.

What this decision was about

Account closed or refused, Funds blocked or frozen

In the Ombudsman’s words

I’m satisfied that banks and building societies are entitled to take fraud and security measures before approving account transactions... I accept Mrs B says that some transactions went through but others didn’t. But for the reasons I’ve explained I think it’s up to Santander to make such decisions regardless of the amount if it had genuine concerns. I make it clear that I’ve not seen any evidence that suggests Santander has made a mistake in blocking the transactions unfairly.Account closed or refused

I’m satisfied that banks and building societies are entitled to take fraud and security measures before approving account transactions. I think such measures are designed to protect a business and protect a customer’s money. I appreciate that on occasions those measures can cause inconvenience to customers and I appreciate that in this case Mrs B was not present in the United Kingdom which made trying to sort matters out more complicated. But I can’t fairly tell a business how it uses such measures and I think such matters are for a business to decide upon when exercising its commercial judgement. I accept Mrs B says that some transactions went through but others didn’t. But for the reasons I’ve explained I think it’s up to Santander to make such decisions regardless of the amount if it had genuine concerns. I make it clear that I’ve not seen any evidence that suggests Santander has made a mistake in blocking the transactions unfairly.Funds blocked or frozen

Source

This page summarises the Ombudsman’s published final decision. The document itself is the record: DRN1650811.pdf on financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

The outcome shown is the Ombudsman’s own published classification, not our reading of the text. Nothing here is legal advice, and a decision concerns only the complaint it was made about.