Adele's packaged bank account may not have been right for her, but she delayed complaining to her bank and asking us for help.
What happened
Adele took out a packaged bank account because someone working at her bank said she would find the additional features on the account useful. But no one explained what those features were.
Twelve years later, Adele got a letter from her bank which explained the costs of the packaged bank account and the insurance benefits that came with it. These were travel insurance and breakdown cover.
Because she didn’t drive – and hadn’t travelled abroad since she opened the packaged bank account – Adele decided to swap the account for one that didn’t charge fees.
But it was eight years later before Adele decided to complain about being sold the packaged bank account. And when she made a complaint, her bank said she’d made it too late. It refused to look into the complaint, so Adele came to us.
What we said
Our rules say you need to complain within:
- six years of when the event happened, or
- three years from when you first realised, or could have realised, that you had a reason to complain.
Adele’s complaint came to us 20 years after the packaged bank account was first opened. We thought it was reasonable to assume Adele had understood that the benefits of the account weren’t right for her, when she got the letter in 2012. So, we thought she should have known then that she had a reason to complain.
There weren’t any exceptional circumstances either to explain why Adele hadn't complained on time – no reasons for the delay, that might have made a difference to whether we could look at it or not.
Unfortunately, because Adele hadn't complained on time, we couldn’t look into her complaint.