The Financial Ombudsman Service reviewed over 44,000 cases in the past year – double the number of cases looked at in the previous year and equating to over 850 complaints a week.

The ombudsman said that the majority of complaints came from customers who felt they were mis-sold the extra benefits or were signed up without full knowledge or consent.

In many cases customers were not made aware of alternative free accounts and other cases raised issues of customers being unable to use the ‘benefits.’

For example, some customers found they were over the age limit for travel insurance.

It is not necessary for banks to make sure the customer will use the extras: but they do need to check if they are eligible.

The ombudsman suggested that most claims were put forward from claim companies, accounting for around 60 per cent of all complaints, stating that they reject most of these claims, upholding only around 14 per cent.

A spokesman said: “Frustratingly, some claims managers submitted mass cases that didn’t explain the individual circumstances behind each complaint and provided little detail.

“We made it clear that we expected to see complaints that reflected each person’s individual situation, not generic complaints that stood little chance of succeeding.

“Because we rejected these complaints, this had a big impact on the number of complaints we upheld.”

The spokesman added that while “undoubtedly some people were signed up who didn’t want, couldn’t use or didn’t need the accounts”, many customers did use the benefits.

A great number of packaged bank accounts remain on the market with MoneySavingExpert’s Martin Lewis once referred to packaged bank accounts as the “marmite of banking” - you either love them or hate them.