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International Journal of Consumer Studies ISSN 1470-6423

Consumer trust relations with payment cards and banks:

an exploratory study
Tuija Koivunen1 and Helena Tuorila2
1
School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
2
Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority, Helsinki, Finland

Keywords
Banks, consumer complaints, payment cards,
qualitative study, trust.
Correspondence
Tuija Koivunen, School of Social Sciences and
Humanities, University of Tampere, Linna
Building, Tampere FI-33014, Finland.
E-mail: tuija.koivunen@uta.fi
doi: 10.1111/ijcs.12154
Abstract
The article focuses on the ways in which consumer complaints reflect the trust relationship
between consumers, payment cards and banks from the consumers’ point of view. The
empirical data consist of consumer complaints from Finland and are analysed with quali-
tative method. The data show that consumers use payment cards in various places for
different purposes at home and abroad at least until something unexpected and problematic
happens. According to the consumer complaints, in problem situations, the banks blame
the consumers and categorically deny their responsibility. Negligence on the part of the
consumers and questions concerning technology are the major reason for distrust concern-
ing the reliability of payment cards. These findings provide bases for practical guidelines
to increase trust in payment cards and, finally, implications for consumer education are
discussed.

Iivarinen, 2011). The present article tackles this shortage by focus-

Introduction
In the modern world, payment cards are becoming the primary
payment method for in-person and online purchases. Due to the
popularity of payment cards, the market for credit and debit cards
is continuously growing. Payment cards are considered to be the
most efficient and convenient way to pay in consumer-to-business
relations and they have replaced cash and cheques to a great extent
(Erasmus and Lebani, 2008; Pulina, 2011; Sakharova and Khan,
2011; Wickramasinghe and Gurugamage, 2012). However,
payment cards were created in an era when the present risks were
unimaginable. The payment card has evolved from a paperboard to
metal and then to plastic with a magnetic stripe and now a chip
(Heikkinen and Iivarinen, 2011). While the actual payment card
has changed over time, the basic idea has not. It is supposed to be
an easy, quick and safe payment method instead of cash.
As the payment card market has expanded rapidly in recent
years, the number of crimes which involve payment cards has
increased as well (Sakharova and Khan, 2011; Lamberger et al.,
2012). The criminal market of payment card fraud within the
European Union (EU) is dominated by well structured and glob-
ally active organized crime groups. Moreover, payment card fraud
is a low risk and highly profitable criminal activity which brings
organized crime groups originating from the EU a yearly income
of around €1.5 billion (Europol Review, 2012). Experienced or
perceived insecurity in electronic payments, such as card pay-
ments, hampers trust in payment services in general and also
affects related industries such as e-commerce. Despite this, trust in
payment cards is clearly an under-researched topic, although trust
is an elementary attribute of payment services (Heikkinen and
ing on consumer trust in payment cards.
Literature overview and
research objective
During the last 25 years, the notion of trust has received a great
deal of attention in research (Grayson et al., 2008; Kantsperger
and Kunz, 2010). Consumer trust in payment cards has been
studied from various perspectives. Technology-based perspective
(Dimitriadis and Kyrezis, 2008; Kantsperger and Kunz, 2010)
research reported findings from a retail bank customer survey,
which revealed two dimensions of trust, affective and cognitive
trust, and the significant role of three variables in forming trust in
these channels: trust in the company, reputation of the company
and disposition to trust. According to Maroofi et al. (2012), both
technical contribution and security declaration are significant
factors for improving consumers’ observed security. Consumers’
observed security is positively related to consumers’ observed
trust and use of e-payment systems. Consumers’ observed trust
also has a positive impact on the use of e-payment systems.
From an economic perspective, Merschen (2010) reviews the
global status of card payment fraud against the backdrop of the
progressing deployment of global EuroPay, MasterCard and Visa
(EMV) chip cards. Merschen (2010) also compares the obvious
success stories of chip technology at points of sale in many coun-
tries with the global reality of inconsistent EMV penetration and
its consequences for overall fraud reduction. Sullivan (2008) notes
that smart cards have the potential to provide strong payment
authorization and thus put a substantial dent in the problem of

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© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Consumer trust relations
identity theft and payment fraud. The falling costs of infrastructure
are tilting the cost-benefit calculation in favour of adopting
payment smart cards.
Segal et al. (2011) have studied trust in payment cards from a
juridical perspective. They have examined how credit card com-
panies and banks have created a self-interested infrastructure that
insulates them from the liabilities and costs of credit card fraud.
Contrary to widespread belief, retailers, not card companies or
banks, absorb much of the loss caused by thieves who shop with
stolen credit cards.
From the perspective of consumer complaining behaviour,
Hogarth et al. (2001) have provided a picture of complaining
behaviours, problem resolution and satisfaction with the complaint
process. According to their results, consumers seem to have a
cost-benefit approach to complaining; those with more at stake
have taken more assertive actions and spent more time pursuing
their complaints. Consumers whose problems have been resolved
are obviously more satisfied with the complaint process and their
outcome. According to Stauss (2002), customers’ complaint sat-
isfaction refers not only to the solution to the problem offered by
the company but also to the additional attributes of how the com-
plaints are handled. A factor analysis of complaint satisfaction data
leads to the identification of two factors: cold fact complaint
satisfaction and warm act complaint satisfaction. Obviously, com-
plainants differentiate between those quality attributes that can be
evaluated on the basis of objective facts on the one hand, and those
that lead to more emotional reactions. Cold fact satisfaction seems
to have a stronger influence on overall complaint satisfaction and
relationship satisfaction than warm act complaint satisfaction.
However, the influence of warm act complaint satisfaction is
stronger on relationship satisfaction than on overall complaint
satisfaction.
To our knowledge, there is very limitedly academic research
that has addressed the complaining behaviour of consumers
encountering unauthorized use of their payment cards. What is
even scarcer is the related research that utilizes qualitative research
methods, despite the fact that trust has been a key aspect in numer-
ous studies concerning Internet banking and other Internet-based
services (e.g. Grabner-Kräuter and Faullant, 2008; Mukherjee and
Nath, 2003). Nevertheless, we still know very little about consum-
ers’ trust in banks and financial institutions in general (Shim et al.,
2013), although trust is widely acknowledged as a central aspect of
the relationship between consumers and banks. For example, most
consumers have long-term relationships with banks (Kantsperger
and Kunz, 2010), but to what extent this is indicative of consum-
ers’ trust in banks is not fully known.
In the existing literature, consumer trust has been defined e.g. as
the expectations held by the consumer that the service provider is
dependable and can be relied upon to deliver on its promises
(Sirdeshmukh et al., 2002; Pizzutti dos Santos and Von der Heyde
Fernandes, 2008) or as consumers’ willingness to rely on an
exchange partner in whom they have confidence (Kantsperger and
Kunz, 2010). This definition includes the idea that a consumer
may feel confident and secure when doing business with the
service provider (Kumara and Mittal, 2004). Moreover, a con-
sumer may maintain his or her beliefs about the service provider’s
benevolence and honesty (Grayson et al., 2008).
These definitions of trust are our starting points too. Grayson
et al.’s (2008) idea of broad-scope trust refers to customers’ trust
86
T. Koivunen and H. Tuorila
in the broad social context in which a relationship might develop.
Based on that, we argue that customers who own and use a
payment card have broad-scope trust in such payment system in
general. However, we need more directional forms of trust for our
analysis. Grayson et al. (2008) have also discussed narrow-scope
trust, which refers to customer trust in individual firms and their
representatives. Our analysis is based on this notion of narrow-
scope trust, although we still find this conceptualization insuffi-
cient for the purpose of our study. Consequently, we need to widen
the definition of narrow-scope trust for our analysis to involve
consumers’ reliance on all parties involved with the card payment
processes, i.e. on organizations, on individuals and on technology.
In addition, we regard distrust as consumers’ inability or unwill-
ingness to trust.
While trust in payment cards has been analysed from several
points of views, i.e. from economical, juridical, technology-based
and consumer complaining behaviour perspectives, trust in the
various components of the card payment process has been widely
ignored. The gap in the literature is surprising because trust in
organizations, individuals and technology is a fundamental
element in the use of payment cards. Another shortage in previous
studies concerning trust is that too little attention has been paid to
the consumer’s perspective. The majority of the existing studies
have emphasized the service providers’ perspective, instead of
citizens’ experiences. This is although consumers’ experiences
and attitudes provide valuable information about the strengths and
shortcomings of payment card systems and practices.
The principal objective of this article is to empirically analyse
the ways in which consumers’ problems and complaints reflect the
trust relationship between consumers, payment cards and banks
from the consumers’ point of view. Because trust is a substantial
part of the relationship between consumers and banks, it is impor-
tant to gain more knowledge of the ways in which trust relations
are created, altered and occasionally also terminated. The qualita-
tive study seeks to address two research questions: (1) what kind
of trust relations there are between consumers, payment cards and
banks issued the cards and (2) what kinds of situations lead to
transforming the trust relations to distrust.
Cardholders’ complaints in Finland
This study contains an analysis of consumers’ views on
unauthorized use of payment cards. Payment cards were selected
as the source of complaint data because they have a high level of
diffusion within the consumer marketplace and the broad-scope
trust (Grayson et al., 2008) in payment cards is of utmost impor-
tance for the whole of modern society.
Given that more than 70% of Finns use payment cards in their
daily shopping (Federation of Finnish Financial Services, 2013),
Finland offers an excellent context for examining trust in payment
cards and banks. Finnish consumers need to take three steps to
resolve problems related to unauthorized use of a payment card.
The steps are basically the same for the US consumers (Hogarth
et al., 2001). The first step is to contact the bank’s payment card
blocking service in order to stop the unauthorized use of a card.
The second step, after the possible financial damage becomes clear
to the consumer, is to seek redress directly from the bank that
issued the payment card (Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development, 2010). More often than not, the bank’s response
International Journal of Consumer Studies 39 (2015) 85–93
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
T. Koivunen and H. Tuorila Consumer trust relations

Table 1 The summaries of the complaints from the Consumer Disputes Board

Case Complaint Financial The recommended decision of the

number number The way payment card was misused loss Consumer Disputes Board

1 897/39/2010 Credit card was stolen from backpack
2 1053/39/2010 Customer’s wallet and credit card were stolen at
night in central Helsinki.
3 1342/39/2010 According to the customer, the card was charged
with illegal purchases during a trip in Tallinn.
4 1892/39/2010 Customer’s wallet and credit card were stolen during
holiday trip to Athens. The customer thought that
the card was valid only in certain department store
chains.
5 2075/39/2010 According to the customer, the card was charged
with illegal purchases during a trip to Tallinn.
6 2348/39/2010 Fake police officers copied the card information in
Barcelona.
7 2352/39/2010 Customer forgot his bag and credit card in a pub. He
contacted the payment card blocking service but
didn’t specifically request the service to shut down
the card.
8 2403/39/2010 Customer’s wallet and credit card were stolen during
ferry trip from Helsinki to Tallinn.
9 2659/39/2010 According to the customer, the card was in his
wallet at home while he was jogging. Card was
used to make an illegal withdrawal from cash
machine.
10 3198/39/2010 Customer’s wallet and credit card were stolen during
train journey.
11 3711/39/2010 Customer’s wallet and credit card were stolen in
shopping centre after he made a withdrawal from
cash machine.
1.660 € Negative resolution. Backpack is not a safe place to
keep payment card.
1.007 € Negative resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card.
4.395 € Negative resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card.
1.500 € Positive resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card. Payment recipient
must, however, confirm the identity of cardholder.
2.268 € Negative resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card.
3.278 € Negative resolution. Credit card information and PIN
should not be given to anyone.
1.037 € Negative resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card.
1.617 € Negative resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card.
140 € Negative resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card.
1.664 € Negative resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card.
1.560 € Positive resolution. Customer’s action by cash
machine was meticulous. There was no
negligence on customer’s part in safeguarding the
card.

to the consumer is unfavourable and redress is not granted. In that
event, the third step for the consumer is to contact a third-party
organization dealing with consumer complaints.
In Finland, there are two public organizations to which consum-
ers may alternatively address a complaint: The Consumer Disputes
Board (CDB) and the Banking Complaints Board (BCB). It is the
consumers’ decision to choose between the Boards on where to
address their complaint. The Boards handle consumers’ written
complaints demanding redress from another party. A decision
reached by the Boards is a recommendation for both parties of a
dispute concerning the resolution. The handling of a matter by the
Boards is free of charge for both parties. The opinions issued by
the Boards are public unless the Boards otherwise order (Fine.fi,
2013; Kuluttajariita.fi, 2013).
Methodology
Qualitative complaint documents from the CDB and the BCB
were used because they are well documented and well suited to
collecting in-depth, qualitative data about the problems that result
in complaining behaviour and how consumers experience these
problems. The complaints lend themselves well to obtaining an
understanding of the phenomenon under study, which is trust
relations, from the consumers’ point of view. The documents
effectively offer information on consumers’ behaviour in situa-
tions of unauthorized use of payment cards, investigation of con-
sequences, banks’ responses to financial demands made by
consumers concerning the unauthorized use of payment cards and
the Boards’ resolutions. The resolution is positive when the Board
has decided it in favour of the complainant and negative when it is
decided in favour of the defendant. In accordance with the
exploratory nature of this study, we have applied a qualitative
method to the analysis of the consumer complaints. A qualitative,
exploratory research method was chosen because it allows the
discovery and identification of new ideas. The use of an explora-
tory descriptive research method is especially suitable when aca-
demic research has looked very little into these areas (Grbich,
2013).
The research material consists of 11 complaints from the CDB
(Table 1) and 12 complaints from the BCB (Table 2). The com-
plaint documents were chosen from the Boards’ complaint data-
bases. The complaints were resolved in 2011 and they were filed in
2010 and 2011. During that time period, the Boards received more
complaints than they resolved. From the CDB, all the complaints
were chosen and from the BCB 12 different kinds of complaint
cases were chosen from the total of 46 complaint cases. The way
in which the payment card was misused and the amount of finan-
cial losses suffered by the complainant were the key grounds for

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© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Consumer trust relations T. Koivunen and H. Tuorila

Table 2 The summaries of the complaints from the Banking Complaints Board

Case Complaint The way payment Financial The recommended decision of

number number card was misused losses the Banking Complaints Board

1 17/10 Ex-husband stole credit card and PIN from home
2 18/10 Credit card was stolen in Australia. Card was stolen
from locked hostel room while the customer is
asleep.
3 19/10 Credit card and PIN were stolen after customer left
from pub with four unknown persons.
4 30/10 Credit card was stolen from locked cashbox at
home. Stolen PIN was kept in another place in
apartment.
5 38/10 Customer left a restaurant and went home with
unknown men. During the ride, they stopped at
unmanned petrol station to fill up the tank. The
next day, customer noticed that the card had
disappeared.
6 4/11 Card was charged with illegal purchases in a
restaurant in Portugal.
7 5/11 Customer spent night in a restaurant and the next
day noticed that he didn’t have the card. Police
investigation revealed that professional criminals
had stolen the card in restaurant.
8 11/11 Customer forgot the payment card in an ATM at a
bank. Card was stolen.
9 13/11 Card was charged with illegal purchases in a
restaurant in Tallinn.
10 40/11 Card was charged with illegal purchases during
holiday trip to Gran Canaria.
11 41/11 Credit card was stolen right after customer made
withdrawal from cash machine. Customer was
under the influence of alcohol.
12 64/11 Customer left a restaurant and went home with
unknown men. During the ride they stopped at
unmanned petrol station. In the car, the customer
noticed that the credit card had been stolen. He
contacted card blocking service as soon as he got
home.
620 € Negative resolution. Credit card and PIN should be
kept separately and in a safe place at home.
522 € Positive resolution. Customer kept the card in a safe
place.
22.540 € Negative resolution. Customer was drunk and
showed gross negligence in his/her actions.
1.989 € Positive resolution. Customer kept the card in a safe
place. PIN, however, should have been kept in a
safer form.
2.480 € Negative resolution. Customer showed gross
negligence in his/her actions. Customer should
have checked that the card was in his/her
possession as soon as he/she got home.
5.322 € Negative resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card.
5.160 € Positive resolution. Customer showed no gross
negligence in his/her actions in the restaurant.
2.500 € Negative resolution. Customer showed gross
negligence in his/her actions.
3.707 € Negative resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card.
2.700 € Negative resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card.
1.980 € Negative resolution. Customer is in charge of the
usage of his/her payment card. Customer showed
gross negligence is his/her actions.
1.600 € Positive resolution. Customer tried to ensure safe
usage of his/her card. Customer showed no
negligence in his/her actions.

selecting the complaints for detailed analysis in this exploratory
study. A purposive sampling technique was applied to select com-
plaints. Purposive sampling allowed the identification of diverse
complaints that complied with the inclusion criteria and ensured
the collection of miscellaneous data in order to cut down the
number of similar cases. The background information of the
misuse situations is presented in Table 3.
The complaints include facts, consumers’ experiences and
thoughts about the events connected to unauthorized use of
payment card. The complaints are related to trust and distrust in
various parties involved in the process when payment cards are
used (Atkinson and Coffey, 2004). These also include situations in
which there has initially been trust but because of a fraud, the trust
has turned into distrust. The analysis in this article concentrates on
the ways in which these trust relations appear in the texts. The
complaints provide information on how consumers, payment cards
and banks interrelate and what the significance of trust is in these
relations.
The analysis was carried out by carefully reading and
re-reading the data (Lindebaum and Cassell, 2011) and relating
the content of the complaints to the concepts of trust and dis-
trust. The analysis was first performed by both the authors inde-
pendently and then their judgments were compared and
reconciled. The analysis began by classifying the research mate-
rial and identifying the observations that could be interpreted to
illustrate the trust relationship between consumers and other
actors. Then, the analysis was carried out by combining the
observations through seeking out common denominators or
themes (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995; McAlister and
Erffmeyer, 2003) and, thus, doing thematic analysis (Eriksson
and Kovalainen, 2008). The themes were trust in technology,
trust in organizations and trust in individuals. Finally, these
themes were subjected to careful and detailed analysis, which
allowed making conclusions based on the complaints. Examples
of the complaint cases are referred to in the following sections
outlining the results of the analysis.

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T. Koivunen and H. Tuorila
Table 3 The background information on misuse situations
The payment card was under the cardholder’s control when
unauthorized use of payment card had occurred.
The payment card was stolen when unauthorized use of
payment card had occurred.
The unauthorized use on payment card took place in home
country.
The unauthorized use of payment card took place abroad.
Consumer noticed the disappearance of payment card
immediately and contacted the card blocking service.
Consumer did not notice the disappearance of payment card
immediately and contacted the card blocking service later.
Results
In our study, consumers’ trust in payment cards and banks is given
various meanings with regard to the components of the
unauthorized use of the payment cards. According to the analysis,
these meanings can be grouped into three dimensions: trust in
technology, trust in organizations and trust in individuals.
Trust in technology
Trust in the payment terminal
The data show that consumers use payment cards in various
places for different purposes at home and abroad. They use cash
dispensers, pay for their purchases in shops, buy tickets from
ticket machines at railway stations, buy food and drinks in res-
taurants, for example. Consumers expect payment safety to be
taken into account when payment terminals are placed at their
disposal because credit card information is more or less a direct
link to a consumer’s funds. Based on the complaint documents,
consumers commonly feel that in shops, restaurants, bars and
other such places the payment recipients do not necessarily
create safe circumstances for typing in the personal identification
number (PIN). In other words, the keyboard of the payment ter-
minal is visible to every direction and there is no privacy to use
the terminal.
Many shops, restaurants, etc., prefer to facilitate personnel
functions rather than focus on consumer safety. The complaint
documents indicate that consumers who feel that their payment
security is endangered do not always have the possibility to
request a secure place to use a payment terminal, especially during
rush hours (BCB 7). Also, the technical features of payment ter-
minals cause distrust in payment technology. The design of
payment terminals endangers the safe typing of PINs (CDB 10,
CDB 11). Especially, tall people standing close to the cash dis-
penser can get a view of the individual’s PIN.
The technology related to the use of payment cards and PIN
codes calls forth questions among consumers. Many complainants
suspect that it may be possible to ‘take the customer’s money’
without using the original payment card and PIN. In one complaint
International Journal of Consumer Studies 39 (2015) 85–93
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Consumer trust relations
The complaints from the The complaints from the
Consumer Disputes Board Banking Complaints
(case number) Board (case number) Total
3, 5, 6, 9 6, 9, 10 7
1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12 16
1,2, 7, 9, 10, 11 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12 13
3, 4, 5, 6, 8 1, 2, 6, 9, 10 10
1, 2, 6, 8, 10, 11 2, 11, 12 9
3, 4, 5, 7, 9 1,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 14
case, the consumer claimed that the payment card had been under
his control when the alleged payment card fraud had happened
(CDB 9).
Trust in organizations
Trust in the payment recipient
According to the data, trust in the payment recipient’s honest
action is the very starting point when payment cards are used by
consumers. Consumers apparently tend to believe in the payment
recipient’s willingness to ensure that all the payment instruments
meet with the standards and recommendations set by the authori-
ties. Consequently, the consumers expect payment terminals to be
authentic. Some cases of complaint on the unauthorized use of
payment cards are based on allegations of dishonest action by the
payment recipient. In some complaints, the consumers insist that
the payment recipient has misused the payment card by charging
a larger sum of money than the real price of the purchase inten-
tionally or by saving card information for later unauthorized use
(CDB 3, CDB 5, BCB 6, BCB 9, BCB 10).
The complaint documents show that when consumers use their
payment cards, it is important that they receive a receipt so that
they can check the amount and validity of a payment. Especially in
those cases of unauthorized use of payment cards that have hap-
pened abroad, consumers validate their complaints by stating that
they did not receive a receipt and therefore were not able to check
the validity of the related payment information. For example, in
one case, a consumer used his payment card abroad in a restaurant.
He bought beer several times but was not given a receipt. After-
wards, he found out that expensive champagne had been charged
several times on the card (BCB 9, CDB 5).
Trust in the payment card blocking service
According to payment card contract terms, the cardholder must
contact a bank’s payment card blocking service immediately when
the payment card disappears. After doing this the cardholder is
released of liability concerning the use of the payment card. Con-
sumers generally display a strong trust in blocking services
89
Consumer trust relations
because they are believed to act in the interest of the cardholder.
The blocking service has no financial incentives concerning the
unauthorized use of a payment card. However, the complaint
documents show that it is not enough to just contact the blocking
service, but the cardholder must specifically request that the
service shut down the card. Distrust in blocking services is caused
in a situation in which the consumer hesitated on whether to shut
down the card or whether it is just missing and could be found
later, which was the case in one of the complaints (CDB 7).
Distrust can also be caused by a misconception that someone other
than the cardholder can shut down the card, e.g. a family member.
Due to bank secrecy, information about the use of a payment card
cannot be given to the cardholder’s family members, even if they
request the information with good and honest intentions, as in one
of the complaints.
Trust in the bank
In the analysed complaints, the consumers’ financial losses vary
between 140 and 22 540 Euros. In Finland, a consumer’s own risk
in the misuse of a card is 150 Euros and the cardholder is respon-
sible for financial damage caused by the unauthorized use of a card
only if the card or PIN have been obtained by an outsider because
of the cardholder’s negligence and the cardholder cannot show
proof of his or her innocent action (Payment Services Act, 2010/
290).
The complaint documents indicate that consumers who have
fallen victim to unauthorized use of their payment cards expect the
bank to fulfill the payment card contract terms. Consumers trust
that the bank will compensate them for their losses. However, the
banks reject the consumers’ claims in all the complaint cases.
Without exception, they consider that the consumer’s own negli-
gence is the reason for the financial loss. The banks’ negative
response to consumers’ financial losses create distrust towards
banks. The complaint documents also indicate that consumers who
have fallen victim to unauthorized use of a payment card often
believe that banks promote businesses where customers are
cheated (CDB 3, CDB 5, BCB 9). According to the consumers,
banks should take more responsibility to ensure the lawfulness of
recipients of card payments. When banks decline to compensate
financial damages to consumers, a consequent step for the con-
sumer is to seek reimbursement from third-party organizations
dealing with consumer complaints.
Trust in individuals
Cardholders’ trust in their own action
Consumers have little control over technology or organizations,
but they are able to control their own actions. According to
payment card contract terms, the cardholder is obliged to keep the
card and the PIN safe and the PIN separately from the card so that
it is not possible for an outsider to find it. The complaint docu-
ments indicate that consumers largely trust in their own ability to
comply with the regulations on payment card usage. In the com-
plaint documents, the consumers give full accounts of what has
happened and strive to prove that they have not been negligent
when using their payment card. In their own opinion, they have
contacted the payment card blocking service without delay when
90
T. Koivunen and H. Tuorila
they have noticed that their payment card is missing. In the com-
plaint documents, the consumers describe their behaviour as con-
vincingly as possible in order to obtain a positive resolution.
The cases of unauthorized use of payment cards bring consum-
ers’ trust in their own action under question, as it also appears as
a reason for the problems or has contributed to the emergence of
problems. The conflict demonstrates that consumers do not nec-
essarily act in accordance with the payment card contract terms.
The analysis of the complaints reveals that the consumers are not
always familiar with these terms. The data include, e.g. complaints
in which the consumer states that she or he did not know that the
daily limit for withdrawals is not in fact an obstacle to withdrawals
with a due date (BCB 3) or that a store card can also be used as a
payment card (CDB 2, CDB 4). In other words, the customers are
rather uninformed card users. On the basis of our data, we do not
know the reason for this lack of information.
The complaint documents also show that consumers apply
payment card terms in their own way. The terms emphasize the
confidentiality of the PIN. It should not be told to anyone. Still, in
one case the customer revealed the code to a fake police officer
upon request (CDB 6). In another case, a cardholder was aware
that her ex-spouse knew the place of her card and PIN, but she did
not think that he would do anything with that knowledge (BCB 1).
Eventually, he used the card and PIN under false pretences. Based
on the complaint documents, consumers tend to trust too much in
their own action concerning payment cards especially in those
situations where alcohol is involved (BCB 11). Drunkenness
weakens attention and exposes consumers to situations where
criminals find opportunities to misuse payment cards. The results
of our analysis lead to the conclusion that consumers tend to trust
largely in other people but are themselves unreliable cardholders.
Trust in other people’s honesty
The more high-risk environment and situation the consumer uses
his or her card in, the more carefully he or she should observe the
surroundings and make sure that the PIN and the card are not in
danger of ending up in a criminal’s possession. In crowded places,
consumers do not pay sufficient attention to covering the keyboard
with a hand when typing in the PIN. It is easy for criminals to find
out the number. Contract terms regarding keeping the payment
card safe are not necessarily adhered to. According to the resolu-
tions of the Boards, a backpack, e.g. is not a safe place to carry a
payment card because the cardholder cannot keep it in eye sight
(CDB 1). Nor do cardholders check often enough that the card is
safe. Especially in a throng, a push may mean that the payment
card has been stolen.
According to the event descriptions in the complaint docu-
ments, cardholders easily trust in other people’s honesty and
believe that they will not try to find out the PIN code in order to
misuse it. Excessive trust in other people can be expensive. A good
example of this kind of excessive trust is a case where the card-
holder was given a ride by strangers. As payment for the ride, the
travellers stopped to fuel up and the PIN code ended up in wrong
hands (BCB 3, BCB 5, BCB 12). Later the cardholder noticed that
his payment card had disappeared.
Criminals who pretend to be authorities pose a threat to con-
sumers especially abroad, in a different cultural context. One
complaint gives a poignant example of this kind of a problem
International Journal of Consumer Studies 39 (2015) 85–93
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
T. Koivunen and H. Tuorila
situation that may occur abroad. Fake police officers claiming to
represent the narcotics division copied the payment card infor-
mation and made unauthorized withdrawals worth over 3000
Euros. According to the complainant, she did not have the capac-
ity to question the demands of the fake police officers in such a
sudden, tensioned situation. The complainant thought that she
had given the payment card information to authentic authorities
(CDB 6).
Summary of the empirical results
The data analysed here consist of 23 complaints of which 17 had
a negative resolution and only six had a positive resolution.
However, this ratio cannot be generalized to complaints at large,
although the resolutions issued by the Boards are more often
negative than positive. We assume that the situations that prompt
the customers to file complaints and especially the negative
responses received to the complaints both have an impact of
decreasing customers’ trust in banks. Although receiving a posi-
tive resolution does not necessarily change the trust relation, being
aware of the bank’s negative response to a complaint may change
it by decreasing trust.
Discussion and conclusions
This research investigates the ways in which consumer com-
plaints reflect the relationship between consumers, payment cards
and banks from the consumers’ point of view. Third-party com-
plaints are especially important and troublesome to service pro-
viders because they represent a higher-order action than
complaints directly addressed to the company (Feick, 1987). The
effort and involvement associated with third-party complaint
behaviour usually indicate a degree of consumer dissatisfaction
that can threaten marketing relationships (McAlister and
Erffmeyer, 2003).
Finnish consumers use their payment cards extensively in vari-
able situations. Our argument is that consumers would not use
their payment cards if they do not have broad-scope trust (Grayson
et al., 2008) in the social context of payment cards. In other words,
if consumers do not own cards, use them at home and abroad, there
would not be payment card fraud either. Thus, the data of this
study suggest that consumers have trust in the cards as a payment
method at least until something unexpected and problematic
happens, maybe also after that. In addition, consumers seem to
have trust in banks as long as there are no problems with their
payment card use. It has been suggested that some level of uncer-
tainty is required for trust to emerge. As long as there is no
uncertainty or risk involved with a service, trust has no relevance.
Complete knowledge obviates the need for trust (Dasgupta, 2000;
Laeequddin and Sardana, 2010).
In our interpretation of the data, consumers’ trust in banks turns
into distrust when their payment card is misused and banks let
down the consumers’ expectations by systematically stating that
the consumers have caused the problems themselves by being
negligent. Banks add insult to injury when they refuse to compen-
sate the financial losses of the consumer who has fallen victim to
a crime. Consequently, a complaint to a third-party organization is
indicative of such distrust in banks.
International Journal of Consumer Studies 39 (2015) 85–93
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Consumer trust relations
The results presented in this article indicate that trust relations
between consumers and payment cards involve the participation of
technology, organizations and individuals. This array of relation-
ships among technology, organizations and individuals is drawn
from Grayson et al.’s (2008) definition of narrow-scope trust,
which we found useful but widened it to meet the needs of our
analysis. Thus, the theoretical contribution of this study is to,
following Grayson et al. (2008), understand broad-scope trust as a
broad social context in which the payment cards are used. This
social context includes cultural attitude towards payment cards
usage, the national banking sector and the economy at large.
Furthermore, we understand narrow-scope trust as a directional
form of trust in firms and individuals. Furthermore, trust in
payment cards is an individual experience (Blomqvist, 1997; Shim
et al., 2013) which is built as a multidimensional phenomenon. In
the usage of payment cards, trust and distrust are related to tech-
nology, organizations and individuals.
Our findings have important practical implications for eliminat-
ing the factors that produce distrust in payment cards. We found
two essential keynotes concerning trust in cases of unauthorized
use of payment cards: consumer and technology. Negligence on
the part of the consumers seems to be the major reason for distrust
concerning the reliability of payment cards. Consumers’ aware-
ness and preparedness need to be improved, as education is an
important determinant of consumer trust (Bell and Eisingerich,
2007; Sakharova and Khan, 2011). The Payment Services Act
(2010/290) obliges banks to give general instructions to consum-
ers, but they should be given more detailed directions and accurate
information on how to protect themselves when using payment
cards. It would be convenient if the financial institutions also
informed and reminded cardholders of their responsibilities and
provide advice on how to protect their cards. In 2013, the Euro-
pean Commission adopted a legislative package in the field of the
EU payments framework. This package proposes a revised Pay-
ments Services Directive (PSD2), which would offer better pro-
tection to consumers. In most cases, consumers would lose a
maximum of €50 if they had an unauthorized card payment instead
of current loss of €150 (Citizen’s summary, 2013).
Technology is another cause for distrust concerning the usage
of payment cards. Some consumers use payment terminals care-
lessly giving criminals easy access to their card information. Our
research indicates that problems related to trust in the usage of
payment cards could be prevented by improving the identification
methods of payment card users. Only the legitimate cardholder
should be able to use the payment card and at the same time the
identification methods should be easy and fast and not too expen-
sive for the payment recipients. Perhaps, biometric passports will
lead the way to the payment cards. In any case, identification
technology is developing rapidly (Duta, 2009; Adeoye, 2010;
Clodfelter, 2010) but credit card companies have good reason to
avoid new technologies that could have an effect on their rev-
enues. The revenue generated from payment services can be sig-
nificant for some payment providers and a change in payment
security standards could affect those revenue streams. Credit card
companies and banks earn fees from every credit card transac-
tion, including those that are fraudulent (Sullivan, 2008;
Heikkinen and Iivarinen, 2011; Segal et al., 2011). The question
is how long the consumers will pay the bill of the fraudulent
payment card use.
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Consumer trust relations
Limitations
We have utilized data which are limited to consumer complaints.
The data are not representative and therefore the results cannot be
widely generalized. On the basis of the data, we do not know if
most consumers came to a satisfactory resolution of their problems
with their banks and only the unsatisfied consumers filed com-
plaints with the two boards. It is not known how people who have
filed complaints react, especially after a negative resolution from
the Boards, or in what way the negative resolutions influence how
consumers use their payment cards and their relationship with the
bank. Moreover, the data do not provide information about the
customers’ or the banks’ reactions to the resolutions or about
the consequences the resolutions have. These questions are crucial
in order to further explore the consumers’ experiences and their
relationship with banks.
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