Financial Ombudsman-please help!

Organic12

I’m not sure this is the correct board to post on. I’m looking for some advice in dealing with the Financial Ombudsman following A&L messing up a Chaps payment from my current account.

After A&L messed up, I wrote a letter of complaint to them. All this happened at the end of September 2008. As they were unable to provide me a final response within the eight weeks, I filled in the form for the Financial Ombudsman. A&L’s letter to me clearly stated they had passed the eight week period and I was within my rights to go to the Ombudsman.

I came home tonight to find a letter of reply from the Ombudsman. It says that I have to give the business concerned a chance to put things right first, that they have forwarded my letter to A&L and I should give them eight weeks. The Ombudsman has returned the form and the copy of my letter to A&L.

I am hopping mad :mad: :mad: :mad: . As well as A&L being idiots, the person at the Financial Ombudsman has ignored the details on my form stating I had raised the complaint on 26th September with A&L and also not bothered looking at the copy of the letter I had enclosed, which of course is dated.

I cannot believe anyone seriously looking the five pages (four comprising the Ombudsman’s form) I sent could have missed the blindly obvious but for being lazy and not bothering to do their job.

Has anyone dealt with the Ombudsman?? Are they just a bunch of muppets, potentially worse than those at A&L? I have a mind to phone them tomorrow but know I will find it extremely hard to keep calm.

Coincidently, A&L gave me their final response only yesterday. I am still dissatisfied as they have not bothered to answer some of the more serious points I raised, have put a spin on what happened that would impress Mandelson and nor have they bothered to actually say sorry.

I was drafting a letter to forward to the Ombudsman today explaining why I’m unhappy with A&L’s response. However, receiving the Ombudsman’s letter today suggests I’ll have to do some redrafting as it’s all just too grown up for them.

Sorry for the long post and my thanks in advance to anyone with any advice. I need my sanity back please, life is just too short!!!

olly300

Why don't you phone them up and ask them how do you make a complaint about them? You may get a better response to your query.

Uncertain

Well there is a saying of "If you can then do, if you can't then teach" (probably a bit unfair!!)

Perhaps it goes further "If you can't teach then get a job in a bank but, if you can't even manage that, then work for the FOS"!

Milarky

Has anyone dealt with the Ombudsman?? Are they just a bunch of muppets, potentially worse than those at A&L?

Yes. And yes [IMO]

Coincidently, A&L gave me their final response only yesterday. I am still dissatisfied as they have not bothered to answer some of the more serious points I raised, have put a spin on what happened that would impress Mandelson and nor have they bothered to actually say sorry.

Now you can resend your paperwork (attaching a copy of the A&L 'final response') to the FOS again.

I had the same kinds of problems with a FOS complaints handler not accepting that I had ever made a 'formal complaint' to the firm in all the correspondence I sent to her. Her response was to do as with you - send everything back and write to the firm on my 'behalf'. Totally pathethic. My understanding is that the 'complaint' to the firm does not have to be formalised such as: 'I wish to complain about a CHAPS payment you made...' but you try arguing this with the FOS (as I did)

The FOS are inept IME. You complain about 'how' a complaint about a firm has been dealt with and it goes off to another handler. The quality of response you get from them is decidedly ropey (to the extent that it had to be explained to me that the letter I received appearing to suggest that the enquiry was ongoing was, in fact, the definitive account.) All I got from that process was a patronising 'we apologise if you felt bla bla' but the expectation that a 'review' is going to go into the specifics of what happened - who did/did not what when etc - from which conclusions may be drawn about any actual culpabilty (or vindication) of the people concerned just ain't going to happen. It's the way the world works, I'm afraid FOS are a tick-box organisation which received 100 times more complaints than they ever put through a formal process of review (many get settled by the firm as soon as the FOS confirms you have contacted them, a large proportion of complaints are filtered out by the FOS under juridicational restrictions - see here - and of the rest a large number are then 'mediated' by the FOS with some kind of offer being made and accepted.) If the court system worked on the basis of a 1% referral rate we'd laugh but that's how the FOS has wound up - and I don't hear anyone laughing about that.

Organic12

Thank you everyone for posting:beer:

I rang the FOS on Friday morning. The lady I spoke to immediately offered to take my case and also apologised. I asked to speak to a Manager so I'm waiting to be called back.

I faxed over all the documents, including A&Ls recent response together with my comments. The lady was good enough to call me back confirming all had been received and that she needed no further documents from me. Fingers crossed that I get this resolved.

It sounds like the whole "send it back" thing is a bit of strategy to (1) reduce the work load (2) prompt the banks to settle. I did wonder if A&Ls recent letter was because they had been contacted by the FOS.

As mentioned by Milarky, my expectation, based on their literature, was that they'd look into the case details before making a judgement. I'm hopeful this will happen but based on Milarky's experience and that of a friend I spoke with this afternoon, it seems unlikely.

I was interested to see in Milarky's link that the FOS can dismiss a case where "the firm has already made a fair offer of compensation". As A&L have shoved some money in my current account, I think the FOS will now just say, "what are you complaining about then?"

The short answer to that is that they have treated me like a muppet, not responded in full to my complaint and failed to respond within a reasonable amount of time. The money does not reflect the consequences of their mistake nor does it recongnise how much time and inconvenience I was put to.

Btw, does anyone know how the FOS is funded please?

Thanks again to you all, I appreciate you taking the time to post. I'll post an update when I hear back from the FOS.

Regards,
O

Extant

Organic12 wrote: »

Btw, does anyone know how the FOS is funded please?

We are funded by levies and case fees which businesses we cover have to pay by law. Consumers do not pay to bring a complaint to the ombudsman. And we receive no government funding.

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/faq/answers/research_a5.html

jonesMUFCforever

What was the original !!!!-up?

Milarky

Organic12 wrote: »

It sounds like the whole "send it back" thing is a bit of strategy to (1) reduce the work load (2) prompt the banks to settle.

More the former in fact. The FOS won't retain copies of your complaint either as a matter of policy where they return it in such cirucmstances ('incomplete' in their words because it lacked the 'final response', and they missed the fact that you had already waited eight weeks)

dunstonh

Its possible too much is being read in to it.

They will send a complaint on to the firm if they believe you have not completed the FSA approved complaints process with the firm first. If the firm misses or is going to miss the 8 week point, they should issue a letter to that effect saying you can now go to the FOS if you wish or you can wait. Its possible the FOS didnt realise you had received that letter when you went to them.

Organic12

Thank everyone, the gaps are being filled in thanks to you all.:beer:

So FOS is funded by the companies they are supposed to judge? Ummm....

The complaint concerned mishandling of a payment.

The fact the FOS "need" the final response and had not realised A&L had told me to go to the FOS, does then make sense of why they chucked it all back at me and contacted A&L.

It's so nice that what originally really smacked me for lack of sense is now becoming clearer.:T

Regards,
O

dunstonh

So FOS is funded by the companies they are supposed to judge? Ummm....

All FSA authorised firms pay levies to the FOS. The funding comes whether that firm has complaints or not. So, there is no bias. Indeed, many of us wish that the FOS funding only came from firms that had upheld complaints as those of us with no complaints dont feel its fair we should pay for those that do. Especially when you consider that three quarters of complaints at the FOS are about 15 companies and 80% of advisers have not had a complaint with the FOS.

The FOS is generally more consumer biased but only slightly than what you would expect a court of law to give as a response. It does have a reputation of being inconsistent at times, especially in areas where they have farmed out complaints to a 3rd party firm to help with the load.

The FOS does understand that mistakes happen and will not usually penalise a company that has made a mistake and then resolved it in a fair way. If they have not resolved it in a fair way thats when the FOS can tell them what to do. Compensation is rarely required to be paid. Redress (covering the amount of the financial loss, where there is one) is the usual method and often a goodwill gesture ranging from £25 to £400 depending on the impact the mistake has had.