Metro Bank PLC · DRN-6222131

The complaint Mr S is complaining that Metro Bank PLC won’t refund an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) withdrawal which debited his account even though he didn’t receive all the cash. What happened Mr S says that on 15 September 2025 he attempted to withdraw £250 from his account with Metro Bank via an ATM. He says that the £250 was initially dispensed but was then almost immediately drawn back into the ATM so he was only able to take £20 from it. But the full £250 was debited from his account. He says he waited at the ATM for up to five minutes, but nothing appeared on screen. Mr S says that he left it a few days before reporting what had happened to Metro Bank, because he’d heard that it could take a few days for accounts to adjust when this happens. But when his account balance wasn’t adjusted, he reported what had happened to Metro Bank. Metro Bank temporarily refunded the disputed amount while it looked into what had happened. But after an investigation, it concluded that the evidence showed that the full £250 had been dispensed by the ATM, so it re-debited the £230 in dispute from Mr S’s account. However, it did accept that it had made an error which meant it hadn’t investigated Mr S’s report as promptly that it should have, as it didn’t provide him with an outcome until November 2025, after Mr S complained about how long it was taking. It paid Mr S £150 in compensation for this. Mr S brought a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Our Investigator reviewed the evidence and concluded that Metro Bank had shown that the transaction had been processed correctly. She also thought the £150 compensation Metro Bank had paid to Mr S for the delay in its investigation was fair and reasonable. Mr S didn’t agree – he responded to say he didn’t think justice had been done because he hadn’t received his £230 back. So, his complaint has been passed to me for review and a decision. 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. I’m sorry to disappoint Mr S but having done so, I’m reaching the same outcome as the Investigator, which is that Metro Bank doesn’t need to refund the disputed amount of £230. I’ll explain why. The Payment Services Regulations 2017, section 75 says: (1) Where a payment service user—

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(a) denies having authorised an executed payment transaction; or (b) claims that a payment transaction has not been correctly executed, it is for the payment service provider to prove that the payment transaction was authenticated, accurately recorded, entered in the payment service provider's accounts and not affected by a technical breakdown or some other deficiency in the service provided by the payment service provider. So, in the circumstances of Mr S’s complaint, it’s for Metro Bank to show the cash withdrawal Mr S is disputing was completed correctly. As there is a dispute about what happened, I must reach my decision on the balance of probabilities – in other words, on what I consider is more likely than not to have happened in light of the available evidence. Mr S made the disputed withdrawal at 9.14pm on 15 September 2025. The withdrawal was correctly authenticated using Mr S’s PIN. Metro Bank didn’t own the ATM that Mr S used, and it had to contact the company who did for the ATM records. The technical evidence shows that the cash held in the ATM reduced by the correct number of notes following the disputed transaction. And the number of notes retained by the purge bin on the ATM didn’t change following Mr S’s disputed transaction. If Mr S’s cash had not been dispensed, I would expect to see a corresponding discrepancy when the ATM was next balanced. But the ATM owner has told Metro Bank that the ATM was balanced on 18 September 2025 and no discrepancy was detected. The evidence also says that the cash was taken from the ATM, and if it hadn’t been I’d expect to see an error message, but there is no evidence of this here. So, I think the technical evidence does show that it’s more likely than not that Mr S’s cash was successfully dispensed. I’ve thought about the possibility of the ATM being tampered with, but I don’t think the evidence supports this. Mr S says he waited after the disputed transaction, but the evidence shows that after the disputed transaction Mr S inserted the same card again and attempted another withdrawal of £230 which was declined, and the ATM was then used again very shortly after this and cash was successfully dispensed. The ATM was also used shortly before Mr S used it. So, if it had been fitted with a device to ‘trap’ the cash dispensed, there doesn’t appear to have been a window of opportunity for a fraudster to add or remove this type of device. Metro Bank has already paid Mr S £150 for the delay in its response and the inconvenience he was put to in needing to pursue the matter with it. Considering the impact this would have had on Mr S, I think this is fair and reasonable in all the circumstances. Once again, I’m sorry to disappoint Mr S. But I find it’s more likely than not the cash was properly dispensed and in all the circumstances, I don’t think Metro Bank need to refund the disputed amount to him. My final decision My final decision is that I’m not upholding Mr S’s complaint.

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Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr S to accept or reject my decision before 14 April 2026. Helen Sutcliffe Ombudsman

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