Have your say on the Financial Ombudsman Service

magpiecottage

amcy wrote: »

The FOS is completely in the pocket of the financial companies and a waste of everyone's money.

So you wasted all of nothing in the fees paid to the Ombudsman, then.

amcy wrote: »

They investigated an endowment missell for me and concluded it was missold. However, they refused to look at the promised of performance we were given and instead used a standard formula to show that we were not worse off than had we had a repayment mortgage, so the conclusion was "missold - yes, compensation - no".

In every mortgage endowment case I have ever looked at, the first thing they do is consider whether a guaranteed maturity value was given if they find evidence to persuade them that a guarantee was given they require the firm to honour it but otherwise will not.

amcy wrote: »

The conclusion was that I spent days on proving I was missold and all the FOS would do was use a standard formula, ask irrelevant questions, delay responding, not answer questions and eventually I had to give up.

The conclusion would have been that although you had not been able to demonstrate the guarantee you claimed had been given they were satisfied that if you had been properly advised you would have taken a repayment mortgage, so the firm should make up the difference.

The calculation showed you were, in fact better off and although it seems likely to have been more by luck than judgement, you have gained so you are not entitled to anything.

If the firm you complained against had calculated this at outset it would have saved a lot of time for everybody!

magpiecottage

hogweed wrote: »

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.

Your case fell within the PIA review of personal pensions. The terms of reference of the review dictated how all firms must review, or offer reviews of all transfers from final salary schemes to personal pensions that they arranged.

The quid pro quo for that was that the PIA Ombudsman Service, and FOS as its successor, could only subsequently investigate complaints on the basis that the PIA review of the complainants case was not carried out in accordance with those rules.

Occasionally such cases do come out of the woodwork (I finished dealing with one earlier this month) but they are now very rare.

magpiecottage

Friday_Girl wrote: »

When someone crooked is the first point of call in such an organisation, what hope is there for justice for us?

Why would they be "crooked"? Incompetent perhaps, maybe lazy but I doubt very much they are crooks.

liverpoollad75

magpiecottage wrote: »

Actually, former adjudicators I have spoken to say if anything the bias is in favour of the consumer although strictly they should find in favour of the firm unless the evidence is more likely than not, and not simply equally likely that the firm has caused a loss.

I have seen evidence of this because. A number of teachers have had mortgage endowment complaints upheld despite being given illustrations that showed a possible maturity value below the mortgage amount. The Ombudsman took the view that they would not have realised it was not enough.

The Ombudsman may be right but I don't want those teachers in front of my children - although perhaps the children could teach them some arithmetic!

Funny how the former adjudicators say this but this forum is contradictory and the mortgage endownment complaint are clearly defined in a test case that was won so more evidence please?

magpiecottage

Robin_Davies wrote: »

Now I want to know what the FOS can do to help creditors. 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?

FOS has no jurisdiction over transactions between private individuals. You make private loans at your peril, I'm afraid.

magpiecottage

wampots wrote: »

i dread to think how much of our taxes this shambles costs

Nothing at all.

The FSA charges a levy to all firms who also pay fees for cases referred to FOS.

scouselad1974

magpiecottage wrote: »

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.

Hi

Thank you for that, I wish I would of asked for your advice before I sent my reply to The Adjudicators findings, I pointed out The OFT guidlines but never asked why do you disagree with the Oft ?
Do you think I could send an additional letter just saying that ?

roglin87

I had cause to ask the F.S.O. to help with a "Time Share" con I was involved with. They offered to help, but in the end they failed to get my money back for these two reasons.
The company who took my money was registered in another country.
This company refused to respond to their attempts to contact them.
Why cannot the F.S.O. have more power throughout Europe, or could they not try harder in these complicated cases?

Bronniedog

I have used this service to sort out problem with the Alliance & Leicester bank. The service has no 'teeth' and took ages to do very little. An attempt to get decent compensation was effectively blocked by the Ombusman Service and 3 requests for the case to be reviewed by a real 'Ombudsman' and not just a case worker were ignored. When I asked for a reason for this I received a three page reply of waffle and no real excuse. This is a 'service' which needs an Omdusman's review itself. Very poor.

magpiecottage

P-G wrote: »

Why does FOS not check a firm's compensation calculations, (generally speaking these are not specifically checked) ordinary consumers have no way to check them ? Getting these confirmed as reasonable is why some people go to the FOS

If the FOS accepts a firm's compensation without checking the calculations, how can he be sure it is fair and reasonable

Probably because it doesn't have the expertise.

P-G wrote: »

Why does " The FOS take the view that there is a fundamental distinction between a situation where the firm has made a settlement offer, and one where no offer has been made and the FOS award compensation". (quotation from a letter from the Independent Assessor dated 21/11/2007). This means a firm which makes an offer can sneak though paying less compensation than FOS guidelines would require if imposed.

I wasn't aware that it did. Generally it makes a distinction between cases where a fair offer has already been made or the firm has correctly identified that no loss has occurred on the one hand and those where it has made no, or an inadequate offer on the other and FOS has forced a change.

The logic is that one way the firm has treated the complainant fairly but the other it has not.

P-G wrote: »

Why is the Independent Assessor's address, phone, fax and email kept secret. She has to be contacted by a PO BOX number.

Although there are many legitimate complainants, there are a few crackpots out there. I think she is entitled to that security.

P-G wrote: »

We all know she works at FOS HQ and uses FOS staff.

I've not seen any evidence of that.

P-G wrote: »

All Banks and firms use highly qualified and experienced professionals to handle their side of customer disputes. Probably more knowledgeable than many FOS staff. Why does the FOS expect a consumer to put their case "in their own words" and discourage the consumer from using a professional adviser, even in a complex financial dispute ? Is this not bias in favour of the Banks ?

Not if done properly but I agree there are concerns. The reported improvement in standards from Claims Management Companies could actually simply show they are getting better at arguing their corner.

P-G wrote: »

IFA's have professional qualifications which take years of training and examinations to achieve. These must be kept up to date to maintain the qualification. How can FOS staff make decisions about these professionals unless they have the same knowledge ?

I so agree. I have seen this go in the "wrong" direction both ways, particularly with more complex cases.

There is also a further issue in that many cases hinge on what industry practice and legislation was 20 years or more ago when the adjudicator may have still been in school.

P-G wrote: »

Why is the burden of proof different for the consumer and the firm ? To win the argument the consumer must show that he is more likely to be correct, not just as likely. So if the arguments are equally balanced FOS finds for the firm.

This is a long standing legal principle known as "He who asserts must prove" and has always been the case. Just as if I make a claim that you ran into my car and damaged it I must have evidence that proves it is more likely than not that you did.

Remember, though, that the burden of proof is "on the balance of probabilities" not "beyond all reasonable doubt". If the Ombudsman is 51% sure he will uphold but if only 50% he cannot.


This brings me round to my own first post on this thread!