Have your say on the Financial Ombudsman Service

angel15_2

Absolute waste of time, and money. Have been treated appaullingly by Capitol One. Put in a complaint. Had to copy five years worth of correspondance and send to FSO. Cap One broke many rules, but then they behaved themselves on one point at the last minute and the Obudsman ruled in their favour. They did not care that Cap One put me (and still do) through hell for years, that they break the rules all the time with no concern....but then they know they can get away with murder, so why follow any rules:mad:. The amount of money it cost me to pursue what was a pointless claim, is huge.
These people are set up to support financial institutions, not the consumer; it is just a PR exercise.
They have caused me considerable stress and inconvenience and I will never use them again; whats the point, they are a toothless old dog licking the feet of the institutions.

lardaholics_anonymous

The FSO appears to have a very narrow remit. Essentially it is "has the institution acted within its own terms and conditions as agreed with the customer". I had a case where I argued that Citibank had acted negligently in providing a faulty online banking website that resulted in a minor financial loss to me, but a larger consequential loss in sorting it out. The Adjudicator explained that the FSO could not look at the negligence and consequential loss issues, but only the minor loss. They went on to adjudicate against me because the minor loss was within the scope of the T&Cs.

I feel a better test for adjudication would be "has the bank acted in a competent and professional manner in its dealings with the client" as opposed to the "has the institution acted within its own terms and conditions as agreed with the customer" test that is currently applied.

I am somewhat embarassed to take the case to court, since the minor loss due to their negligence is tiny because I caught it very quickly. Anyone else hitting the same problem may not be so quick to notice and be more seriously financially disadvantaged.

In summary, either increase the remit to cover a negligence/unprofessionalism that results in direct and consequential losses as a result of this, or make it extremely clear that the remit is only about the correct application of T&Cs from the outset.

Lardaholics

mendipman1

After twelve month of tenacity and the intervention of my MP I had an adjudication in my favour with cost. Solicitors are still negotiating the cost 5 months subsequently, the achilles heel the 'protocol' FOS has with Society of Lloyds to whom they refer insurance deficiencies.

In a nut-shell I was additionally insured with my principal house/buildings/contents insurer for 'legal idemnification' the underwriters reneged on the idemnificaion the 'principals' walked away.

This aspect of insurance requires a root & branch investigation.

Barrie

I have twice had mistakes been made and been told - they can not do a full and immediate refund, it will be two days to recredit.
On the second occasion I ended up ringing around to the clearing people who seemed to be the most helpful but I thought it would be easier to transfer funds to cover and wait for the two days.
Very annoying and doesn't give you much faith in the writing on the direct debit form.
I must admit I had never heard of the FSO, just the FSA......

dstanden

I dealt with the ombudsman over a mortgage endowment misselling claim. When the very first buy-to-let mortgages became available we were told that the only option was endowment, though repeatedly asked for him to check if a repayment option existed.

The estate agent claimed that there was no other option, pocketed his fee and went awol. Years later we claim, discovering there was indeed a repayment option.

Estate agent have no records of sales technique, agent gone, mortgage company satisfied that everything is above board.

Ombudsman agrees with estate agent and mortgage company. I ring for clarification since I was sure my case was strong.

Ombudsman says on telephone that "on the balance of probability" we are liars trying to make a few quid on the backs of the wave of claims against mortgage companies.

Furious, I write and complain. Ne response ever received.

tifo

My experience of the FOS is that it's a biased service which is not transparent in it's workings and takes too long to resolve a case by not pushing the finance company but allowing them all the time they want. You get different decisions depending on who is dealing with the case so their guidelines are useless. I've had cases go on for 2.5 years (PPI).

Clearly biased decisions are upheld at the next stage and even with the IA. They seem to be target based and sometimes the consumer is forced to accept or reject a decision as the FOS are keen to close the case. I've had banks/FOS state something in writing and totally change it later and then tell me to take it or leave it.

I'm talking from the experience of having passed around 20 cases to the FOS (i always chose their route rather than court) and have lost thousands because of biased decisions.

I've never had the FOS award me anything for my time even though i've asked and quoted it from their own guidelines. In the end it always came to "accept or reject the bank's offer" as we think it's fair.

I can give examples if anyone wants them.

cakemaker28

I agree.To take over 3 years to sort out PPI is ridiculous.

wampots

I have had a complaint against an insurance company with the FOS for a couple of years now. The whole process takes to long, the individuals appear to be far to busy and thus the case does not get the attention is needs. There appears to be a will to get rid of the case and agree with the insurance company as it would be easier as most individuals would not follow this further, i would !

In short not a pleasant experience and to be honest has taken a long time for the FOS just to act as a post box, i dread to think how much of our taxes this shambles costs

VERY VERY POOR

Kitty123_2

My 25 year endowment, having been sold on several times, has ended up with Phoenix and the return is appalling. It was taken out before the FSA was established so I have not been entitled to compensation.

It just feels as if everyone has made money out of this except me (and it's my money) ie the original financial adviser and the companies who have sold it on without my agreement. There has been plenty of time for stock market recovery over the 25 year term but because it was sold on and on, they have just sat on it and reduced the terms along the way. If it was a bad product and mis-sold, we should be entitled to compensation and not have companies just buying them to sit on them, saying they can do what they like with them ie give a bonus or not give a bonus.

Have financial companies not learned anything since the banking crisis - you can't treat individuals with such contempt. At the end of the day, I'm left with a nailbiting shortfall on my mortgage but they do not care one jot. I truly believe they have sat on my money and done nothing for me. Companies should not be able to sell off the financial products they no longer want - when consumers have no say and they are the ones who are left with the costs. They are not acting in the best interest of the customer. Why does this not appy to financial organisations?

Robin_Davies

I used the FOS to get an investment platform to allow me to transfer holdings to a competitor's platform without having to sell them. They had repeatedly said I was not allowed to do that, but the FOS used their muscle to persuade them otherwise. Excellent!

Now I want to know what the FOS can do to help creditors. No, not debtors! There's loads of organisations just bending over to help debtors avoid their responsibilities. Not all creditors are greedy landlords or big bad banks. Example; my wife borrowed £15,000 from her bank on 7-years of monthly repayments and loaned it to her son's girlfriend to get her out of a jam. Girlfriend agreed to repay it monthly and this she did for 4 years. Then her rich daddy, who is a tax accountant and local councillor, told girlfriend she could get away without paying me any more. I took her to court and won. So she used this as an excuse to declare herself bankrupt which is rubbish as she was always able to service her debts on a monthly basis and she earns more now than she used to. Now I have to repay my bank back out of my own pocket. I call that theft. The law says it's fine. What can the FOS do to help redress this kind of imbalance, please?