Final Response and FOS queries

firsttimestudent

Hi,

I recently made a complaint against Hoodless Brennan, and received a final response letter from them.

The person who dealt with my complaint gave me an impression that he has not read my complaint properly, and even the T&Cs that he quoted were incorrect - the T&C that he quoted has clearly shown that they have breached it themselves.

The response received was a Final Response letter. I have a few questions:

1) I will prefer to deal with Hoodless Brennan than the FOS, just for the simple reason that it will be quicker. I believe pointing this fact out to them (that they are actually breaching the T&C they mentioned) will quickly resolve the problem. Will financial firms change their stances after a final response letter?

2) I will be away from the UK for 1.5 months in late May to early July. If there are any correspondence from the FOS, will it require urgent replies from me (i.e. 14 day deadline?) or will it be completely fine for me to respond to any letters in early July?

Thanks for any advice please. Thanks!

Milarky

1) You could write a 'letter before action', restating your view that they have breached terms and conditions (etc), and threaten them with the small claims procedure rather than the Ombudsman (You can do this without prejudicing the FOS route as long as you don't follow trough with the issue of a summons) That should get their attention because the 'Final Response' is only in relation to the FOS scheme - not really the 'last word'

2) Unlikely. The FOS will probably only be able to have acknowledged your complaint in that time-scale.

turbobob

Unless they have said "we will no longer enter into further correspondence with you" then they should respond to challenges or questions, especially if they have not understood your complaint properly.

westy69

after i had a final response letter i went straight to the FOS who took 15 months to deal with the case, just advise the FOS that you will be away, will you have access to email? they are usually happy to email correspondence as well as post.

Milarky

westy69 wrote: »

After I had a final response letter i went straight to the FOS who took 15 months to deal with the case, just advise the FOS that you will be away, will you have access to email? they are usually happy to email correspondence as well as post.

15 months!! I know they are getting clogged up but that's just stupidity. How can they expect to maintain public credibility in their 'scheme' with processing times like that? They only look into 1% of all complaints anyway, the great majority being filtered out or a back-door deal being done with the firm concerned. That's what the firms will know and understand, of course, that if the case is complex enough it's a great way to play for time. It makes the 'eight weeks' which the FOS say the firm has to deal with the issue to the same standard quite moot.

firsttimestudent

Thanks so much for all your replies.

The situation was this: I placed a limit sell order on one of the stocks I wanted to take profits on. The price went there, and stayed there for a long time, without triggering the limit sell. I saw it later in the day, and had to call them to check it wasn't sold, then sell it myself manually. In this situation, I actually profitted more, but of course, you wouldn't be sure this will always be the case in the future.

I e-mailed them to ask why their system has completely not actioned my orders. I understand from their T&C that if they are unable to meet the orders, they will attempt twice and then e-mail to inform that they are unable to deal in the order. But the fact is, they did not e-mail. It was neither in my inbox or junkmail, and on their online system, it clearly did not say anything about "Order Failed". In my past experience with them, when it fails, I can see a "Order Failed" thing next to my orders.

This is unacceptable to me, as I have almost instant access to my e-mail - if the e-mail was sent out, I would have been able to sell the shares manually as opposed to only be aware of it at a much latter stage.

Their response is completely poor - he cited the T&C above, and another clause which I could not find in the T&Cs at all. The person also said that another possible reason why my order was not triggered is that the banking sector is very volatile (?), which made me really clueless, as I'm dealing with a mid-cap chemicals company. And worse still, no forms of apology - makes me feel like the person who write the letter to me is an arrogant city boy who hasn't waken up to his job vulnerability.

In view of their letter, I am writing to demand that they put their system right - failing which, I want them to transfer my stock holdings out to another stockbroker, with all costs to be borne by them.

turbobob

It seems there are several terms and conditions with limit orders that might be against you. For example:

4.7 It is your responsibility to access your account and check the status of the Orders through the Limit, Rising Buy and Stop Loss sections of your account. We will not be responsible after we have received your instruction for notifying you that execution, cancellation, amendment or failure to execute the order on your account has taken place.

and

4.11 We do not guarantee that Limit, Rising Buy and Stop Loss Orders will be executed even if the limit price is met. The following is a non-exhaustive list of reasons that may prevent execution;

(i) market conditions at the time (such as a "fast market" i.e. where the market is so volatile that prices quoted by Market Makers are only indicative rather than guaranteed);

(ii) other clients having placed similar orders, but at an earlier time than your order and being executed in priority to your order or;

(iii) other factors which are outside of our control.

The other thing I was wondering is you say the share price "went there and stayed there for a long time" without triggering the sell order. Is that the mid-price or the sell price you are referring to? At the time could you really have actually sold for the limit price?