Electronic money or digital currency
Do you have a complaint about an online service you’ve used to pay, or receive, money for goods and services? You may know this as electronic money, e-money, digital currency or digital cash.
This page will tell you whether you can bring a complaint about electronic money to us and what will happen if you do. However, it does not cover cryptocurrencies.
On this page
Handling complaints about e-money?
What is electronic money or digital currency?
Electronic money, or e-money, is pre-paid money that you store electronically – on cards, devices, online systems and digital databases – for making payments.
Also known as ‘digital cash’ and ‘digital currency’, it includes services like PayPal, Revolut, Tide, Wirecard and Skrill.
Can I complain about electronic money or digital currency?
If you have a complaint about an online service you’ve used to pay or receive money for goods and services, we may be able to help. We cannot currently help with complaints about cryptocurrencies.
We can assist with complaints about an e-money business if it has unfairly:
- reversed a payment, or
- placed restrictions on your account.
However, we can’t usually resolve disputes between buyers and sellers who’ve used an e-money account for a transaction, unless the e-money service’s terms and conditions:
- allow a customer to claim a refund
- offers dispute resolution as part of the service.
How to complain electronic money or digital currency
Our service is free and easy to use.
- Before bringing your complaint to us, you should make a formal complaint to the e-money business involved.
- They must look into things and get back to you within 15 days – either with a response to your complaint, or to explain why they can’t yet give you a response. They then have to send you a response within 35 days. If you’re not happy with this response – or they don’t reply in time – you can bring your complaint to us.
- Our complaint checker will tell you more about some of the things we need to know to get started and help you make sure you’re ready to send us your complaint.
- Fill in our online complaint form. Your case will be assigned to a case handler who will get in touch when they start to investigate.
- To help us consider a complaint fairly, we may ask you for more information later on.
How we settle complaints about electronic money or digital currency
We’ll assess what happened using evidence from you, the financial business and any relevant third parties. We'll also consider:
- the relevant law, and any regulations and industry codes of conduct that applied at the time
- the terms and conditions of the account that you made the transaction from.
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The terms and conditions on the account may allow you to claim a refund if you didn’t get what you paid for – either because it didn’t arrive or wasn’t as described.
If you’re complaining because the electronic money service didn’t refund you, we’ll usually look at:
- the terms and conditions of the account
- any relevant evidence about the goods or services you bought, such as the seller’s original description.
If you bought something using credit, you may be able to complain about its quality under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974.
See Using a debit or credit card – Section 75 and chargeback
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We may be able to look at these complaints if your e-money provider offers dispute resolution as part of its service. If so – and you’re unhappy about a decision they’ve made in a dispute you’ve had – we’ll check that they’ve acted in accordance with the terms and conditions of the account.
If you’re not sure whether we can help with a complaint like this, bring it to us and we will tell you whether we can help you or not.
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We’ll look at:
- what the relevant terms and conditions say and whether they’re clear and unambiguous
- how you’ve been using your account
- how long the electronic money service restricted the account for
- why the electronic money service won’t release money or has frozen your account
- how restricting or stopping your account has affected you.
Once we’ve investigated, we'll tell you whether we believe you've been treated unfairly or not. And we’ll explain how we reached our decision.
If we think the e-money business has done something wrong, we'll tell them to put things right.
We may also tell them to pay you compensation for any distress or inconvenience you have experienced.
Case studies
Keith complains after e-money business reverses ticket payment
Banking Disputed Transactions Electronic Payments
Gillian's e-money service won't refund her account after dodgy purchase
Fraud and scams Banking Electronic Payments
Luiz's e-money business stopped him getting access to his account
Banking Electronic Payments
