Nationwide Building Society · DRN-6090425

The complaint Mr T is complaining that Nationwide Building Society won’t refund an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) withdrawal which debited his account even though he didn’t receive the cash. What happened Mr T says that on 21 June 2025 he attempted to withdraw £250 from his Nationwide current account at an ATM with another provider. The cash wasn’t dispensed but his account wasn’t debited, so he tried again to withdraw £80. He says this cash wasn’t dispensed either, and after leaving, he returned a short time later and withdrew £250 in cash from his Nationwide credit card account, which was successfully dispensed. He called Nationwide a few days later and was told that the £80 had been debited from his account. He disputed this, and Nationwide temporarily credited £80 to his account while it investigated. But having reviewed the evidence presented to it by the ATM provider, it concluded that the cash had been dispensed and it re-debited the funds from Mr T’s account. Mr T brought a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Our Investigator reviewed the evidence and concluded that Nationwide had shown that the transaction had been processed correctly. Mr T didn’t agree. He said that Nationwide should have reviewed the CCTV from the ATM which he believes would show that the cash wasn’t dispensed. Mr T’s 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 T but having done so, I’m reaching the same outcome as the Investigator, which is that Nationwide doesn’t need to refund the disputed amount of £80. I’ll explain why. The Payment Services Regulations 2017, section 75 says: (1) Where a payment service user— (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.

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So, in the circumstances of Mr T’s complaint, it’s for Nationwide to show the cash withdrawal Mr T is disputing was completed correctly. Mr T made the disputed withdrawal at 11:53am on 21 June 2025. The withdrawal was correctly authenticated using his PIN. As Nationwide didn’t own the ATM that Mr T used, it had to contact the company who did for its ATM records. The technical evidence shows that the cash held in the ATM reduced by the correct number of notes following the disputed transaction – 3 £20 notes and 2 £10 notes. And the number of notes retained by the purge bin on the ATM didn’t change following Mr T’s disputed transaction, as I’d expect to see if the transaction had failed due to a problem with the cash. If Mr T’s cash had not been dispensed, I would also expect to see a corresponding discrepancy when the ATM was next balanced. But the ATM provider has told Nationwide that when the ATM was balanced no discrepancy was detected. I can see that following Mr T’s £80 withdrawal, the cash wasn’t taken until 24 seconds after it was presented, which in turn was around 12 seconds after Mr T took his card from the ATM. I wouldn’t have expected it to have taken as long as 24 seconds for Mr T to have taken the cash if he was still standing in front of the ATM when it was presented. Another card was inserted into the ATM just five seconds after the cash was taken. This does suggest to me that it’s possible somebody else had approached the ATM when Mr T walked away from it, and they had taken the cash that had been presented from Mr T’s withdrawal. But this doesn’t mean that Nationwide is liable to refund Mr T, because the cash was successfully dispensed. Where 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. And here, I think the technical evidence does show that it’s more likely than not that Mr T’s cash was successfully dispensed. I recognise Mr T wants the CCTV to be reviewed, but here that wasn’t requested by Nationwide at the time and we don’t know for sure CCTV showing Mr T’s transaction was or is available. But I don’t think it was unreasonable for Nationwide to rely on the audit data from the ATM provider to reach a conclusion here. Once again, I’m sorry to disappoint Mr T. But I find it’s more likely than not the cash was properly dispensed and in all the circumstances, I don’t think Nationwide need to refund the disputed amount to him. My final decision My final decision is that I don’t uphold Mr T’s complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mr T to accept or reject my decision before 14 April 2026. Helen Sutcliffe Ombudsman

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