Consumer complains account was mis-sold with benefits she didn't need

Packaged Bank Accounts Banking

Mamie got in touch after she took out a packaged bank account that gave her two insurance benefits. She said that she didn't need these benefits, and came to us for help.

What happened

Mamie had opened a packaged bank account that came with two main benefits; travel insurance and roadside assistance. But Mamie felt that she didn't need these benefits, and that actually the bank had mis-sold the account to her. 

She made a complaint to her bank, but the bank said she had indicated that she was happy with the sale, so rejected her complaint. 

Mamie decided to come to us to see if this decision was fair. 

What we said

When we looked into Mamie's complaint, we saw that at the time the sale was made, Mamie had some significant health problems. These meant she wasn't able to travel abroad, and she only travelled in her carer's car, which would probably have been excluded from the roadside assistance benefit. 

The bank told us Mamie had filled out a customer satisfaction survey after the account had been sold to her, and she had indicated that she was "very happy" with the sale. But we felt that Mamie couldn't have been given the advice or information she needed when she was in branch, because she wouldn't have been able to use either of the two main benefits.

We decided to uphold Mamie's complaint, and told the bank to refund Mamie the account fees she had paid, along with a standard 8% interest.