Amos found he’d been paying hundreds of pounds for benefits of a packaged bank account that he’d never used, so he came to us for help.
What happened
In 2011, Amos upgraded to a ‘packaged bank account’ that gave him access to extra benefits like insurance and cashback. A member of staff at his bank told him about these benefits at the time.
Years later, Amos realised he had never used any of the benefits – even though he’d been paying hundreds of pounds every year in packaged bank account fees. Feeling like he’d wasted his money, Amos complained to his bank.
Amos told the bank that he hadn’t used any of the insurance benefits in over a decade and hadn't been on holiday since 2017. He felt that he should be refunded some of the fees he'd paid.
The bank explained that the account hadn’t been sold incorrectly. It said that Amos had known about the benefits and chosen not to use them and said only he was responsible for that. Unsatisfied, Amos brought his complaint to us.
What we said
We reviewed the circumstances surrounding Amos’s account upgrade and considered whether the bank provided clear information about the packaged account.
Amos said he’d had a fee-free account with the same bank before his upgrade in 2011. Then, he’d been persuaded by bank staff to agree to the upgrade so he could enjoy the benefits. But there wasn’t any evidence that Amos hadn’t had a choice about the upgrade.
Amos’s upgraded account included travel insurance, mobile phone insurance and roadside assistance, as well as banking benefits like reduced overdraft and loan rates. We could see that Amos drove a car, owned a smartphone and travelled abroad in 2011. This meant that when he opened the account, he could have made use of the benefits.
Even though Amos didn’t use the benefits, this didn’t mean the account was sold incorrectly. Insurance policies often aren’t claimed on, but that doesn’t mean their cover isn’t valuable. Plus, we discovered that Amos had sometimes used a small overdraft offered by his bank, which was cheaper for him because of his upgraded account.
In the end, we didn’t find any evidence that the account was sold unfairly or that Amos couldn’t have used the benefits. We therefore didn’t uphold Amos’s complaint.