Ombudsman dragging heels?

suer_2

Hi
I wonder if anyone else is having a similar experiance to my partner & I. We complained to the Ombudsmen in July 2005 regarding what we beleive is a misold endowment by Friends Provident. We had gone to the lender originally Abbey National as we believed that it was staff in the Abbey who had misold it. They wrote back & said that they were merely acting as agents of FP & had to ask FP to investigate. FP responded in February 2005 that we were out of time. So we contacted the Ombudsman in July 2005

Because of family bereavements we were unable to contact the ombusdman again until December 2005 to check on the progress only to be told that they had not received our original papers. So we resubmitted again. They acknowledged receiving the papers at the beginning of February 2006. In June 2006 we were asked to provide details of circumstances that had prevented us from complaining within 6 months of the final refusal letter. We provided full details of our very difficult family circumstances in the summer & autumn of 2005 & also pointed out that we had complained within 3 months of receiving the letter from FP. In September I was told that our case had been allocated to an adjudicator. When nothing was heard by the beginning o December I again contacted them and was told the name & contact details of the person now investigating. I was told a letter had ben sent out but we hadn't received it.

Up until Christmas I telephoned 3 times leaving voicemail messages but did not receive any respnse. At Christmas a letter came asking us to provide 'proof' of our original submission in July 2005 - we were told to respond by the 12th January. I left a voicemail & sent an e-mail (asking for confirmation of receipt). Nothing was forthcoming so on the 18th January I resent the e-mail. This time I got a very short confirmation saying that the original had not been received & that they could now resume their investigations.

Is this story unusual or have other people had this & eventually given up on their complaint?

defender_of_the_weak

This is very common with FOS, I have cases that are 3 years old now and even when we enlisted the help of a clients MP to intervene due to the stress and misery it was causing a client I got a letter from FOS saying sorry we would deal with it asap and another the folowing day saying they don't know when it would be allocated. IMHO the Ombudsman service is not fit for purpose in many instances and clearly use staff without sufficient knowledge of financial services products and practices.

dunstonh

In the last compliance meeting I went to, there was a complaints handler there who remarked that the FOS expect the firms to turn round the information they are requested quickly but when you do send it back, it takes months and months for the FOS to do deal with it.

He also joked that they dont care how long the FOS take as the longer it is, the better as the redress payments are getting lower all the time as the stockmarkets recover.