DRN-6238877

The complaint Mr C in his capacity as a company director brings a complaint on behalf of R Ltd that ClearBank Limited won’t refund what he says are unauthorised payments made on R’s account. For ease of reading, I’ll mostly just refer to Mr C himself, where I also mean his company R. What happened The detailed background to this complaint is well known to both parties. So, I’ll only provide an overview of some of the key events here. In August 2025 Mr C reported three payments to ClearBank as unauthorised, saying he didn’t recognise them. The payments were for £447.25, £250 and £184.50. They all took place either on the evening of 8 August 2025 or the early hours of 9 August 2025 and appear to have been to a restaurant and a nightclub. ClearBank investigated but ultimately held Mr C liable for the payments. Mr C complained and when ClearBank maintained their position he referred the complaint to our service. One of our Investigators didn’t recommend that the complaint should be upheld. In a broad summary he didn’t think ClearBank had acted unfairly. Mr C disagrees and has asked for an Ombudsman to review his complaint. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. Having done so, I’ve reached the same outcome as our Investigator and for similar reasons. I know this will be disappointing for Mr C, so I’ll explain why. The relevant regulations here are the Payment Services Regulations 2017 (PSRs). Broadly speaking, these say that Mr C will be responsible for authorised payments, and ClearBank will usually be responsible for ‘unauthorised’ payments. Mr C told our Investigator that he “was not consciously present at, nor did I knowingly transact with, those establishments… I would stress that I have no memory of attending or spending money at the disputed venues.” As such, my first consideration must be whether it was unreasonable for ClearBank to treat the payments as having been authorised. Clearly, I wasn’t present at the time of the payments, and so my finding must be based on balance as to what I think is more likely than not, taking account of the relevant evidence. Here, I find the evidence from ClearBank to be more persuasive than Mr C’s testimony. This evidence shows that the payments in question were authorised through the use of Google Pay. And it also shows that the same Google Pay device was used to authorise other legitimate payments (that Mr C hadn’t reported to ClearBank), both before and after those in dispute. Mr C also said that his phone wasn’t lost or stolen. Further to this, Mr C accepts being in the vicinity of the venues where the payments were made around the relevant time, which is someway from where he lives. And the payments themselves also don’t represent

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what is typically seen in instances of unauthorised account use. Typically, payments will be made in quick succession so the dishonest party can maximise their benefit, often continuing until funds are depleted. But here, the payments took place across a couple of hours and also left a significant credit balance in R’s account. Taking all these factors together, I don’t think ClearBank acted unreasonably in treating the payments as authorised. It follows that I also don’t think there would’ve been any likely prospect of a chargeback succeeding or anything further that they ought to have done once Mr C informed them of his allegation. And whilst Mr C has also mentioned section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, this isn’t applicable as credit didn’t fund the payments in question, the account balance did. Mr C has raised some further points that I also wanted to address. He has quoted part of the PSRs saying “where a payment service user denies authorising a transaction, the burden of proof rests on the payment service provider to show that the transaction was authenticated, accurately recorded and not affected by technical breakdown or other deficiency.” He also went on to say that the use of a payment instrument alone is not sufficient to prove authorisation. I’ve thought about these points. And for a payment to be authorised, it requires two components, firstly for it to have been correctly authenticated through the agreed process for making a payment. And here, I’m satisfied ClearBank have evidenced this. They’ve shown that each disputed payment was authenticated through Google Pay in line with the process for doing so. The second part of authorisation involves consent for a payment to be made. My finding on consent and that ClearBank acted reasonably in treating the payments as authorised isn’t based solely on the payment instrument used. It is a finding made on the balance of probability, in conjunction with the other payments using the same Google Pay that haven’t been disputed and the pattern of spending overall. So having considered these points, they don’t change my mind as to the outcome of the complaint. I also don’t agree that the evidence of how and when Google Pay was set up is required to fairly reach an outcome, given the non-disputed payments made through the same token. Mr C finds it significant that ClearBank initially referred to the payments as being made by Apple, rather than Google Pay. I don’t place similar weight on this. I find it’s more likely than not a simple human error by a ClearBank agent, rather than being indicative of a fundamental problem with the reliability of ClearBank’s evidence overall as Mr C suggests. Having considered all the available evidence, I’m not persuaded that ClearBank have treated Mr C unfairly in the circumstances of this complaint and so I’m not going to require them to do anything further to resolve this complaint. My final decision For the reasons outlined above, my final decision is that I don’t uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask R to accept or reject my decision before 26 May 2026. Richard Annandale Ombudsman

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