Have your say on the Financial Ombudsman Service

magpiecottage

Mediawoman wrote: »

The organisation needs serious changes to make it work in a professional manner.

Oh I so agree!

pm'd you on it.

Oldbiggles

m1618 wrote: »

Special ISA accounts offered by banks/building societies never seem to have the top rates of interest.
This means that the bank/building society is getting some of the advantage of the interest being tax free. It shouldn't be that way.
Savers are having a VERY rough time right now with most interest rates being below the rate of inflation.
I want the savers to get the full benefit of ISA legislation. I do not think the already rich banks should be making more profits at the expence of savers.

I agree, they offer a good rate to begin the ISA then drop the rate as soon as there is enough loot in their coffers.
Another alternative for the FSO to consider, would be that all financial institutions would have to offer an ISA rate equivalent to the best saving rate on offer by them. Regardless of whether its a childrens saving account, an over 50 account, a 1 year or 2 year etc account. Their ISA rate should always be equal to their top interest account. Banks and Building Societies have been allowed to manipulate the original rules of the ISA to suit their own ends, remember 'CAT Standard ISA's'? I dont think anybody is offering one as it was originally intended.
Someone here has suggested that the FSO is in the pocket of the Financial Service industry, and I think he's on the ball.

magpiecottage

scouselad1974 wrote: »

Hi
This adjudicator doesn't seem to know the OFT guidlines on debt, even though I have pointed them out to him on numerous occasions.

I find simply pointing it out doesn't work - asking open questions is better - "The OFT guidelines say it is unfair in paragraph x.y. Why do you disagree with the OFT?"

That puts the onus on them to think about it and if they don't you can argue that they have not given due consideration.

magpiecottage

Friday_Girl wrote: »

Who does one take it to - other than the FSO themselves, what other choice is there? /QUOTE]

The generally accepted abbreviation for the Financial Ombudsman Service is FOS, not FSO.

If you disagree with the adjudicator's decision you can take it to an Ombudsman. If you disagree with an Ombudsman's decision you can go to court.

That is a big advantage to you over the firm because the only way they can challenge an Ombudsman's decision is a judicial review which is very expensive.

If you are complaining about the behaviour of the FOS or its staff, then you complain internally first but there is also an independent assessor (the independence is limited, though, because FOS appointed her and is not legally obliged to follow her decisions!)

magpiecottage

Bigal wrote: »

Very often they cave in' such as with bank charges.

The Court gave a ruling on bank charges and that is currently the Law. FOS will generally follow the Law unless there is reason to suppose it should not apply.

Bigal wrote: »

In particular, look at CRAs

Credit Reference Agencies are governed by Data Protection legislation and are not under the jurisdiction of the Financial Ombudsman Service. If you have a complaint against one that you are unable to resolve it needs to be referred to the Information Commissioner's Office.

magpiecottage

fthl wrote: »

I think it is possible that some adjudicators are not quite up to scratch.

Very diplomatic. Our views might not be entirely non-consensual!

Impala

I'm afraid that I have to agree with the majority of the negative comments posted above.
I am a senior finance professional. I used the FOS personally many years ago and had pretty poor service then, to the point where I ended up submitting another complaint and claim about their handling of the case and the costs which I incurred) and I've had a lot of experience since January 2009 assisting someone who has literacy and numeracy difficulties in pursuing PPI and credit card mis charging issues.
From the perspective of someone who works in a client service, customer-facing environment, with deadlines and complex issues all of the time, the FOS has been unbelievably slow (even if they are overloaded with PPI and other claims, which I think has been a major issue for them of late). Their customer service is patchy and unprofessional and most letters sent are a waste of time, pointless, convey little information and often do no more than to acknowledge a call or letter - but then never actually reply to it!
They certainly appear to be very biased towards the banks and card companies, etc, and more definitely do not give any assistance to, or true representation for, anyone needing to pursue a complaint, recompense and compensation.
They will not take into account or recommend the payment of any form of compensation except a standard 'simple' 8% (not I think even at the Courts' Statutory Interest level, therefore?) even when there are special or mitigating circumstances, unreasonable delays and errors and so on.
The advisors whom I have dealt with, especially at Adjudicator level (I believe that there is 1 higher level, the actual Ombudsman, to whom one can ask to be referred but we've never managed to get past the Adjudicators), don't seem to have any ability nor teeth to adjudicate a case, nor even to understand it: and they certainly do not have either financial nor legal knowledge, at least when I've spoken to them or written to them and reviewed their replies.
They are also often impossible to get hold of on the phone to discuss matters, do not return voicemail messages and do not take the actions promised when you do speak to them. Some, of course, are better, more helpful or more reliable than others.
In my recent experiences, it took 10-12 months to get to the Adjudicator stage after basic PPI mis-selling complaints were lodged, and this included one case where the credit card company itself had provided actual proof that they had erroneously charged insurance when the CCA form specially said no! In all cases, the bank or other financial institution had also already in principle admitted the PPI mis-selling, so the only problem was that they weren't paying out on it, and thus we went to the FOS to hurry it up! Some hurry....
I ended up putting in an awful lot of work on behalf of my friend, writing many letters to the FOS and the institutions directly, chasing and case managing this for him: the FOS could not understand his disabilities and difficulties and would not talk to me or allow me to speak on his behalf. My friend made a lot of phone calls too, and repeatedly asked for his case to be referred to the actual Ombudsmen, not Adjudicators, but they refused this.

When we did finally get repayment offer letters (well, they call them offers, but it turns out that they are set in stone and the FOS will not argue them or press for more, simply taking the bank's calculations as correct) there was no explanation at all of the basis of calculation, although this had repeatedly been asked for in writing from both the institutions and the FOS - so how does the average man in the street know whether he has received proper redress if it is not explained to him in an appropriate manner and/or he is able to trust those who recommend him to accept it (albeit that in law there is no offer to accept anyway, according to the institutions, as it's all a set computer-generated calculation and that's that)???!
Fortunately, I was able to check the calculations: and they were all wrong, all significantly understated and many had very obvious errors and omissions.
The level of the FOS staff involved was in every case such that they could not understand what the errors and problems were, and we had to fight the FOS to get them even to understand that the figures weren't correct! They couldn't understand when there was more than one complaint in existence against the same institution (e.g. different loans, loans and credit cards, etc) and indeed several co-incident complaints with completely different institutions. They constantly used the wrong references, referred to the wrong cases and files when phoning or writing, got progress mixed up and so on.
All this required a huge amount of work on my part (and my friend's), but there was no apology or compensation offered for this at all. It took 3 or more attempts before the figures were anywhere near acceptable - and still we think far too low - when I recommended that the figures were accepted simply because I couldn't carry on with the time that this was taking, and I thought that a reasonable amount had been obtained. If I hadn't been able to help out my friend then he would have been substantially undercompensated by the FOS, and very clearly they do not in any way check figures for the customers (yet no means of checking is provided otherwise): so I must question what the purpose of their existence really is, and whose side they are actually on. Supposedly, they are independent; supposedly they are also competent…
There are also several other (including legal) issues involved in the way in which they handled and allowed refunds and various actions by the financial institutions, to the absolute loss and cost of the complainant (my friend), but I am not going to carry on further, because the same incompetence and cost to the consumer theme is simply repeated again and again.
My friend is still pursuing matters of compensation with the Adjudicators, I know, and these have been mentioned as being obtainable (and I have previously written about them and can prove this) but the Adjudicator is apparently denying his own words and wholly ignoring various and many issues which were agreed verbally and in writing.
Overall, the system and the handling of FOS complaints in general is nothing short of appalling in the case(s) of which I write. Both of us were disgusted with the FOS service received, and they have caused an incredible amount of wasted time, stress, costs and effort. They seem not to care about the work which they are doing and certainly are not as individuals always doing it anywhere near well nor understanding what it is about. There seems to be no internal complaints or upwards supervision process and no way for the dis-satisfied FOS complainant to take matters further.
In my personal, somewhat knowledgeable, opinion, they have some serious problems and inadequacies within their organisation, staff, knowledge base and overall service which really need addressing urgently, and they are incapable of providing a proper and unbiased and efficient service for the protection of the financial consumer.
Yes, they are free to the user: but somewhere along the line I'm sure that we the consumer or taxpapyer are financing them, and we are not getting anywhere near value for money.

Oldbiggles

What ever happened to the great ‘Share Shop’ idea?
It was once proposed that we would be able to purchase shares in share shops. We would be able to walk into these designated places, pay our money and walk out with a share certificate.
Instead of being able to look after our own finances by getting share certs and arranging to have dividends sent to home addresses for free, we are continually being advised to open Nominee Accounts with managers who charge fees just to collect dividends.
For those people who are competently willing to look after their own finances, the FSO needs to re-establish a cheap and easy route back to the now frowned on service of obtaining and looking after our own Share Certs.

magpiecottage

The_Aussie wrote: »

The original concept for the FSO was good (and required).

Agree, apart from the abbreviation

The_Aussie wrote: »

in practice, it's not working fairly

Agree with that, too

The_Aussie wrote: »

is far too bias in favour of the financial organisations.

Actually where complaints are more complicated it can go the other way because the adjudicator doesn't understand!

The_Aussie wrote: »

I had Barclays ignore every single letter that I wrote despite sending them Recorded Delivery.

A bit late for you but it is generally better just to get proof of posting (free from the post office) as FOS will then deem correspondence to have been delivered two working days later.

The_Aussie wrote: »

Financial organisations have now realised that it is pointless employing people to address complaints as that costs them money. Better to ignore the customer and see if they escalate to the FSO - if they do not, then nothing to do. If there is an escalation then they only need to write the odd letter/phone call to the FSO and possibly pay a little bit of compensation for poor customer service which is far cheaper than employing staff to respond to complaints. The FSO appear to allow this to happen probably because it gives them job security and this is what then creates the backlog of work which will take them years to clear.

The FOS has NO jurisdiction over this. It is an FSA matter. However, the FOS is now publishing lists of firms that have more than 30 complaints resolved in six months and the FSA has made clear that it if FOS "overturns" a high proportion of complaints a firm has rejected it will take action. This has already happened with its action to get firms to revisit PPI complaints.

The_Aussie wrote: »

pays the price for a lack of service, absence of customer support when things go wrong and hardly any chance of a fair resolution when a complaint finally surfaces in the FSO.

FOS is a free service to consumers so they are getting no less than they pay for.

The_Aussie wrote: »

In my opinion, the FSO needs to crack down on the financial organisations to make them accept their responsibilities - such as providing Final Response letters etc.

That is not what the FOS is there for.

The_Aussie wrote: »

And award a monetary value when people have to send protracted correspondence to financial organisations only to have them ignore it.

It can award costs for "distress and inconvenience" but these are intended to be modest and not punitive.

The_Aussie wrote: »

Also, make it a requirement that financial organisations respond to complaints via Recorded Delivery

It has no powers to do that.

The_Aussie wrote: »

I have examples when companies have claimed that the one and only letter that they did write must have 'got lost in the post' and the FSO believes them. In the current climate, very few letters are lost in the post and yet it always appears to happen to financial organisations when they send one vital letter to a customer.

I suspect you would not be able to substantiate that claim and it is because so few letters are lost in the post that it is considered more likely than not to have arrived. It is also why there is no need for you to pay for Recorded Delivery.

helen1991

Took out mortgage in 1996, wanted repayment, financial advisor advised to get endowment. Read on this site a year ago that we could recliam for mis selling, took it to ombudsman but they ruled against us as the time limit had run out but my argument was that we didn't know there was a time limit because nobody advised us of this in the first place.