Bank of Scotland plc trading as Halifax · DRN-6263248

The complaint Mrs P has complained about how Bank of Scotland plc trading as Halifax (Halifax) dealt with her request for a refund. What happened In April 2025 Mrs P made a £200.00 payment to a travel agent and a further £1,300.00 payment in May 2025, using her Halifax debit card. The payments were part payments for a planned trip in June 2025. Mrs P explained that she made the booking on the understanding she would be able to make changes free of charge, but later found out this was not the case, as she said the quote increased by around £3,000.00. She also said she felt pressured into making the payments and that the agent cancelled the holiday around a week after she made the second payment, but did not refund her. Unable to resolve matters with the merchant, she asked Halifax to assist her in getting a refund in June 2025 and shortly after Halifax credited Mrs P’s account with temporary credits for the disputed transaction amounts. Halifax explained that on 9 June 2025, it wrote to Mrs P and asked her to provide further evidence, including detailed information about what happened, copies of communication between herself and the retailer, and a copy of the cancellation policy. On 12 June 2025, Mrs P sent seven screenshots of messages between herself and the agent. Halifax acknowledged that whilst it did receive a response from Mrs P, this didn’t meet the criteria of what it asked her for and so it debited the disputed transaction amounts from her account in mid-July 2025. Unhappy with this, Mrs P raised a complaint, explaining that she had been caused financial hardship when the credits were reversed from her account and meant she was unable to access recent credits to her account. Halifax provided a response to the complaint. It said it was unable to raise a dispute because Mrs P had not provided the information it requested from her and as such it took the funds back from her. It said it reviewed the information Mrs P provided, which confirmed the payments were non-refundable and that the remaining balance needed to be paid by 22 May 2025. It said the booking was cancelled due to non-payment and the merchant had confirmed it was working with the third-party suppliers to arrange a partial refund of taxes, subject to medical documentation. It said that because the merchant was working with her to facilitate a partial refund, it was unable to proceed with the chargeback. Unhappy with this response, Mrs P referred her complaint to this service for an independent opinion. One of our Investigators looked into the complaint and said that he didn’t think Halifax had acted unreasonably when it asked Mrs P for more evidence to demonstrate the chargebacks had a chance of succeeding. He said the evidence she provided missed some key information such as the booking confirmation to enable Halifax to understand what Mrs P had agreed to and acknowledged the copies of the messages Mrs P provided between herself and the agent prior to payment being made. He said Halifax provided a copy of the merchant’s terms and conditions which set out that if the required payments were not made the booking would be cancelled, which is what had happened. He also said

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that as Halifax received information to confirm the merchant was working with Mrs P to recover some of the costs, it was unable to submit a chargeback. Mrs P didn’t agree. She said she would like to provide more information, but needed more time to do so. She said she was pressured into paying the £200 deposit, that she should get a full refund of the £1,300 payment because it was not part of the deposit and that the price increased when she tried to move the dates. She said she felt there was a misuse of power at Halifax. Our Investigator gave Mrs P more time to provide information, however she has not since been in touch. As Mrs P didn’t agree, the complaint was passed to me to decide. I reached a different outcome to our Investigator and so I issued a provisional decision to explain the outcome I intended to reach and the reasons for it. In that I said: “I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. In considering what’s fair and reasonable, I need to have regard to the relevant law and regulations, regulators’ rules, guidance and standards, codes of practice and (where appropriate) what I consider to have been good industry practice at the relevant time. I’m aware I’ve summarised the events of the complaint to some degree. I don’t intend any discourtesy by this – it just reflects the informal nature of our service. I’m required to decide matters quickly and with minimum formality. But I want to assure Mrs P and Halifax that I’ve reviewed everything on file. And if I don’t comment on something, it’s not because I haven’t considered it. It’s because I’ve concentrated on what I think are the key issues. Our powers allow me to do this. Chargeback I want to make it clear that I’m not considering the actions of the merchant, as that doesn’t fall within this service’s remit. Instead my role is to consider the actions of Halifax only. Whilst there may have been issues, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Halifax treated Mrs P unfairly, as something going wrong with a merchant won’t always lead to a successful chargeback claim. As Mrs P made the payments in dispute via debit card, the only way Halifax could potentially assist her in getting a refund was through the chargeback scheme. I need to determine whether Halifax treated Mrs P fairly in how it dealt with the chargebacks, based on the information that was presented to it at the time of the disputes. There are set rules and criteria under which Halifax would need to follow as part of the chargeback process. These rules are set by the card scheme and cannot be altered or amended by Halifax under any circumstances. Part of these rules set out the situations in which a chargeback can be raised in the form of reason codes, along with specific criteria and time scales for each code. A chargeback isn’t an automatic right for consumers and in Mrs P’s circumstances Halifax had discretion to decide whether to attempt them or not. However, in treating Mrs P fairly I’d expect it to attempt them if the scheme rules provided a specific option for her disputes and the evidence showed they had a reasonable prospect of success.

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Halifax has explained that it didn’t attempt the chargeback because it didn’t receive all of the information it needed from Mrs P. Having reviewed the information provided, I can understand why Halifax felt it didn’t have enough information to show that the chargebacks had a good prospect of succeeding. Halifax asked Mrs P to provide specific information to enable it to understand what the transactions were for and what the dispute was about. I have reviewed Mrs P’s response and it did not include all of the information Halifax had requested, for example it didn’t provide details of the dispute or a copy of the cancellation terms. At that point, Halifax did not know the dates of the booking or who the passengers were, or what cancellation terms the booking was subject to. Without that I don’t think it was unreasonable for Halifax to conclude that it didn’t have enough to show the chargebacks had a good prospect of succeeding. As Halifax’s request was in line with the information the scheme rules required it to have received before attempting the chargebacks, I don’t think Halifax treated Mrs P unfairly by deciding not to attempt them. When Mrs P later got in touch to complain about Halifax’s decision not to pursue the chargebacks further, Halifax reconsidered whether it was able to help Mrs P and asked her to provide further evidence. It gathered some more information from Mrs P about the booking and it reviewed the additional evidence Mrs P sent it. Halifax said that it didn’t show that Mrs P was due a refund, as the merchant had set out that Mrs P wasn’t due a refund of any payments made if she failed to make payment on time. It also said that as the merchant had secured partial refunds from the suppliers, which were subject to Mrs P providing further evidence, it was unable to raise the chargebacks. I can appreciate why Halifax made the decision to not attempt the chargebacks, in light of the lack of evidence to show Mrs P was due a refund and because the evidence showed the merchant was willing to assist. Mrs P sent limited information to Halifax and the evidence she did provide shows that information regarding the booking was sent via email, but I can’t see that this was sent to Halifax and as such it seems that some key information was missing, including the full terms and conditions that Mrs P’s booking was subject to. This would have made it difficult for Halifax to establish that Mrs P’s disputes had a good prospect of succeeding, as the information she did provide didn’t support she was due a refund. I’ve also not seen that Mrs P provided Halifax with evidence to show she was provided with false information about any future changes. It follows that I don’t think Halifax treated Mrs P unfairly by not attempting the chargebacks. Customer service Mrs P raised concerns that there was a conflict of interest with the person who dealt with her complaint. Halifax’s call notes show that the complaint was reviewed by another complaint handler who confirmed to Mrs P that no errors had been made in the handling of the complaint. Having reviewed everything, I’m not persuaded that Halifax treated Mrs P unfairly in how it handled her concerns, given all I’ve said above about how it handled Mrs P’s request for a refund. I think it tried to support Mrs P by reconsidering whether it was able to raise a chargeback, which put her in the best possible position to achieve her desired outcome. Mrs P explained that she was caused financial hardship when the temporary refunds were reversed from her account. I asked Halifax to provide evidence to show that it gave Mrs P notice that it would be debiting the disputed transaction amounts from

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her account, following it crediting them in June 2025. Halifax has said its information request email from June 2025 made this clear, but I don’t agree. I’ll explain. I note that when Mrs P first raised the dispute she was given information about the temporary nature of the credits to her account and so I’m satisfied that Halifax did enough to make the potentially temporary nature of the credits clear. Halifax sent Mrs P an email on 9 June 2025, in which it asked Mrs P to provide information within ten days or the claim would be closed. Halifax said Mrs P’s response was insufficient, however I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest it communicated this to Mrs P, or informed her that it would be debiting the funds from her account as a result of this. I think that Halifax could have provided Mrs P with much clearer information to inform her that her evidence was not enough for it to demonstrate the chargebacks had a good prospect of succeeding and that as a result it would not attempt the chargebacks and would debit the disputed transaction amounts from her account. Had it done so, I’m not persuaded the chargebacks would have been successful for the reasons given above and so it wouldn’t be fair for me to ask Halifax to refund those amounts, instead I’ve thought about the impact this had on Mrs P. Mrs P has explained this caused her financial hardship and meant she was unable to access funds in her account, which were vital for her. At the time, Mrs P’s account was in credit and the debits put her account into an unarranged overdraft. I can appreciate that this would have been upsetting and distressing for her. Had Halifax given Mrs P notice of the intended debits, I think Mrs P could have made arrangements to ensure she had access to the available funds in her account, which would have lessened the impact on her. Six days after Halifax debited the disputed transaction amounts from Mrs P ‘s account, it wrote to her to confirm it had agreed a temporary increase to her overdraft of £1,450, which would decrease monthly and be free from charges for three months. Halifax explained it did so to assist Mrs P with her temporary financial difficulties. I think that was fair in the circumstances, however that doesn’t take into account that Mrs P was unable to use her account for six days or access funds during this time. Considering the impact this had on Mrs P, I intend to ask Halifax to pay her £150 compensation for the avoidable distress and inconvenience caused to her by not giving her notice that it would be debiting the funds from her account.” Mrs P and Halifax did not respond. As the deadline for a response has now passed, the complaint has been passed back to me to decide. 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. As neither party has provided any further information, I see no reason to depart from the conclusions reached in my provisional decision. It follows then my final decision is the same as my provisional decision above. My final decision My final decision is that I direct Bank of Scotland plc trading as Halifax, to pay Mrs P £150 compensation to reflect the impact of not providing her with clearer information regarding the debits. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mrs P to accept or

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reject my decision before 28 April 2026. Daniella Roberts Ombudsman

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