Have your say on the Financial Ombudsman Service

susan47

We've had two brushes with the Ombudsman. The first one was cut and dried - a missold endowment - but it still took 2 years to settle.

The second one is ongoing and started 18 months ago. Our son went on holiday abroad and while there, somebody managed to scam £5,000 from his credit card, in cash, on three separate occasions within minutes of each other. He never ever took cash from his credit card, so there was a red flag right there for Lloyds TSB, the company the credit card was with. They should have stopped this from happening it was so unusual.

It wasn't till getting his statement the next month he realised what had happened and reported it. This was 18 months ago. Pretty quickly it was clear that Lloyds weren't going to refund him and they said he must have taken it himself (they even complained he hadn't reported it to the local police but he wasn't aware it had even happened). He had proof he was somewhere else at the time - a debit card transaction somewhere else. They said the time must have been recorded incorrectly and basically called him a liar.

So he went to the ombudsman and amazingly, after giving lots of proof, they ruled against him after a year. In fact, it was clear from some of the correspondence that they hadn't even read all his proof. Clearly, they were on Lloyds' side (we believe that the banks pay for the ombudsman's salary).

So now we are awaiting the final ruling on the appeal with some trepidation. The amount they say he owes them has now gone up to almost £6,000 - from March till December they were charging credit card interest on it, up until the law was changed and they were no longer allowed to do that with sums in dispute. It had actually been working in their favour that the ombudsman was so slow as the interest went up and up.

He keeps getting letters saying they are dealing with it, but nothing happens. Frankly, it looks like they will probably rule in favour of the bank again as they seem to be on their side - so now they can take their time as far as we are concerned. If he has to pay up £6,000 through no fault of his own, well, the longer the better now.

But we are absolutely amazed at how 'rotten' the system is and how weighted the rulings are in favour of the banks. There is no justice whatsoever. I can't believe they can get away with it in this country and in this day and age - it's daylight robbery!

I'd like the ombdusman to ask himself a question each time he deals out this rough justice - how would he feel if it were him in this situation? Why should young people saddled with student debt be additionally saddled with other people's fraud? I repeat, this was down to the bank to recognise it was fraud but they didn't. They let three transactions take place in 10 minutes. Why don't their systems stop this and why aren't they accountable?

Rant over But now you know how I feel about the 'impartial' ombudsman.

And a final PS to this one - as I thought, my son lost his appeal and was forced to pay out £6000 for something through no fault of his own. I despair of the way things work in this country, I really do...

davidnoble

I own an ex local authority flat
Damaged caused to it during council works
Local authority act as agent for their insurer(its an unusual power that LA's have!)

Took 4 months to get them to inspect
They denied damage-despite documented proof incl pictures

They refuse to put finding in writing
Refuse to give their policy details-other than Zurich Municipal

Speaking to Zurich they refuse to consider there is a claim until LA
put anything in writing
LA ombudsmen refers you back to insurers

Financial Ombudsmen needs to address this anomoly and make LA.s act in spirit of law,not, to reduce their premiums!

Bojangles_3

1st case with them took two years to settle.
the current one is almost a year in waiting and they've effectively churned out same excuse as the mortgage lender - almost varbatim.

felicityb83

Hi wrote to the FSO about a year ago. Had three different adjudicators because each kept getting assigned to something else. the last one i had kept telling me that Pruhealth were in their rights to do what they did, although i had given her an email where they admitted providing me with the wrong information and in turn costing me an extra £500 for the same product.

Not holding much hope for the final resolution going by what people have put on here. Part of me feels better in a weird way that at least i am not on my own in thinking that the whole of the FSO needs a complete overhall and actually be impartial and help consumers who have been taken for a ride with financial services.

DebraH_2

Change the rules so that under the Financial Services Act customers who were mis-sold endowments prior to 28 August 1988 can be considered for compensation.

Makes me cross that all customers who are likely to incur a shortfall in their endowment payouts are not automatically considered for compensation.

Thank you.

divermoose

My general comment would be based on them understanding and following through the rules and regulations of the financial world.

They are supposed to ensure that things are fair and just for the general public and obviously take an unbiased view and judgement on matters.

I am a man that has been mis-sold a pension, has 3 endowments all performing poorly so struggling to pay off mortgage, been charged over £3000 by bank charges and had my case thrown out of court due to no progress being made by the Ombudsman. My pension funds are falling year on year...what is happening??

I am a normal working man that relies on the Ombudsman to protect the general interests of the public, how can all of these things happened whilst under the watchful eye of the FOS. Claiming back or mis-selling payments are all well and good but they do not make up for the shortfalls.

I have lost all faith in any financial body, everyone is out for a profit and make the normal person pay....I do not trust the FOS....they do not seem to bother except to follow due process.

Very disappointed.

scouselad1974

Wow I never expected so many people to have similar grievances. I read an article this morning saying that The FOS had received 40,000 complaints within the first 3 months of this year.

cazzacazza

My beef is with Ryanair & the fiasco after the volcanic ash cloud.

Me and my family were stranded in Ibiza back in April & I still haven't received my £700+ back. Despite 3 attempts at claiming back from them. I have proof that I submitted a claim that was received at their offices on 4th May. I rang to chase it up on 3 separate occasions and finally they tell me they haven't got a claim from me!!! Why didn't the first person, or even the 2nd person tell me that when I rang?

I HAD to claim their way.... i.e. send a fax.... who sends faxes these days??? Then they got in touch to ask me to send my original receipts through via post. I couldn't send them, as I had already sent them 9 weeks earlier. Fortunately, I had the good sense to copy them all before I posted them.

So I sent them again 2 weeks ago. We were due back home on 19th April and now it is 27th July & I am still out of pocket. How can these big boys be allowed to get away with having inept staff & rules that we all have to abide by when they don't have to? I was seething when I saw their news headline on their website this week.... "Ryanair Q1 profits up 1% to £139M"

Just pay me my money back....... with interest & I might consider using your airline again :mad:

hogweed

Not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but PLEASE consider it... about 20 years ago, and Independent Financial Parasite persuaded me to transfer my two final salary pension schemes into Personal Pension Plans with Scottish Equitable, which have performed very badly. No-one ion the financial world I've ever spoken to (many) have thought this other than a rip-off in the interests of fat commission for the IFA.


However, when I took it to the Financial Ombudsman, their response was arrogant, dismissive and completely unhelpful. To summarise, they said that the IFA had “investigated”, and found that they hadn't done anything wrong, so the FO wouldn't be investigating. What a surprise.


This, to me, is like the police finding all the bodies in Fred West's house, but “we've asked Fred to investigate and find out if it was he who did it – he says not, so there's no reason for the police to get involved”. The Ombudsman is a typical arrogant, self-justifying, complacent body which is a part of the financial industry it pretends to regulate. It's a sick joke.

promar

In stark contrast to the foregoing comments we have had a rather better experience with the FSO. We have had two complaints dealt with by the FSO , one about a false payment on a credit card and the second a dispute with NFU Insurance on fire damage to a property. The credit card claim took about three months to resolve (The credit card company (MBNA refunded the money without notifying us!). With NFU the case took about 8 months to resolve but the our assigned FSO adjudicator kept us informed on progress. After settlement was agreed the Adjudicator took up our case again with NFU when it it delayed making payment of the settlement