A brokers view on receiving a complaint

ACG

This month I received my first complaint.

I can not post specifics obviously, but the complaint received was from someone who is not even a customer of ours. Yet I still have to follow our complaints procedure.

The reason I am making this thread is because I often read on here people making claims of being miss sold and to me at least, it is nothing of the sort and I thought it would be helpful for people to see what goes in to receiving a complaint our end.

- 1 hour, reading the complaint and checking my files to try and find this customer who turns out to not be a customer.
- 1 hour on the phone to my insurance company explaining the complaint and explaining how it is not valid.
- 2 hours writing a letter responding to the complaint and checking over for errors and ensuring it covers off everything it needs to.
- 2 hours stressing/waiting for my insurance company to give me the green light to reply.
- 1 hour going to the post office queing up and spending money to post the letter recorded (Only £2, but £2 I should not have to spend).
- 1 hour filling out paperwork for the FCA/our records.
- However many weeks/months with it playing on my mind until I know it will not go any further. Obviously I am pretty confident it will not go any further but it does not mean it will not be on my mind.

If you have been miss sold or believe you have been miss sold, make the complaint. But making the complaint on a whim without thinking about it or checking you are complaining to the right person is a little unfair. I have spent over 8 hours on this and this was an easily resolved case. Imagine if the person was not a customer but it was still unfounded, I would be spending a lot longer with the insurance company and going over the clients files.

I will get off my soapbox now.

Thrugelmir

If the individual concerned was not a customer. Why was it necessary to go to such time consuming lengths at this juncture.

ACG

There is a regulatory procedure we have to follow, but also our insurers have their own requirements. I may (I say may as I am not sure) gone a little OTT with it, just to ensure it does go no further with it being my first complaint but as we hear about crazy upheld complaints, I wanted to dot the Is and cross the Ts.

dunstonh

I have had three complaints in 29 years. First one was like yours. It wasn't me. Although the person was adamant it was. They made all sorts of allegations against me. I wasn't employed by the company at the time. I was actually still at school! I brushed that one off as I was just a clerk at the time of the complaint and being young and it clearly not being me, I shrugged it off.

The second one was a try-it-on. I didn't arrange any product and it was someone taking advantage of the free meeting. It came up in conversation that they were thinking about taking a career break. I mentioned to them that if they did that, they should stop the pension as they couldn't continue it if they went ahead. Never spoke to the person again until about 5 years later, when out of the blue a complaint arrived demanding I pay their tax bill for paying into the pension during their career break. Luckily, I retained the original factfind that had all the notes on it and a copy payslip. I said on it that I had verified they were currently eligible but warned them to stop the pension if they do the career break. It was a very easy rejection but it was my first taste of a clear try-it-on.

The third one really hit me hard. It created sleepless nights and stress and looking back, I was probably teetering on the edge of depression as I couldn't work as it created so much doubt in my mind. I would just sit at the desk looking at the keyboard and couldn't do anything. The person was someone I had regular contact with and would never have believed they would complain. However, they flat out lied about everything. It ended up at the FOS and was on my mind for about 6 months. I lost my trust in everyone following that and even today (over a decade later) that one hurts.

So, it's not just the admin work dealing with the regulatory side of the complaint or the PI insurer

This site encourages people to complain about everything. Where someone has a good reason they should. However, when dealing with small businesses people do need to remember that you are not dealing with some faceless individual with no consequences. You are playing with someone's life and livelihood.

minimike2

I remember the day a letter landed from "that" law firm. You know the one, they "sing" their name. I sing along now...It goes like this.... "Buuuunch of Crooks"!. It rhymes....

Anyhow, the ambulance chasers letter arrived with the allegations. I didn't really take in what it was saying other than I was being alleged of having mis-sold my customer a mortgage and they wanted £8k in compensation. This was at the height of the credit crunch, so you can imagine my feeling.

I knew the client instantly, as there had been some really weird goings on with their email - They had said I had emailed them photographs of someone in error. It was total nonsense as my work laptop had no photos and there was no such thing in my sent items. I put it down to them either having a virus or just not being able to use email.

Allegations were mis-selling of an interest only mortgage with no assessment of income, ability to pay into retirement, assessment of suitability of the repayment vehicle, not completing a fact find, not recommending the most appropriate lender....I think there was another 3 points which I don't remember.

The best thing was, that the mortgage they were alleging I had mis-sold was with the lender I had remortgaged them from. I had great pleasure in providing copies of all the required documents to back up the advice etc - It had only been a matter of months since I had done it for them and with them using pensions as the RV I spent hours on the suitability letter.

The fact they then went along with the ambulance chasers to try and do me out of £8k made me furious. I wanted so badly to call them and give them a piece of my mind, but refrained.

Following the response, it went away and I never heard anything again of "Buuuuunch of Crooks" or the client. Just glad I was so thorough with my paperwork. They just take a chance on you getting something slightly wrong with it, even if it is what the client need was.

Lilla_D

I had a client who regularly tried it on saying that I hadn't disclosed this, hadn't mention that, etc. I keep detailed notes of every conversation anyway and send follow-up emails, but for his cases I was always ultra careful because of his casual accusations. Every time he tried something on, I had a detailed response proving that I did disclose/mention/send him everything.

I dealt with his mortgages a number of times before he took this behaviour to another level by making a complaint to the subject lender claiming that I told him that the offer would be valid for 6 months from issue date, so why is it valid for 6 months from the application date? The lender made me aware of it, and because of the history of his false claims and hence my notes, it was easy for me to prove to the bank that I did make the client aware of the correct timelines. I haven't heard anything further from the bank, but when next time the client came knocking on the door, I told him that I did not wish to deal with him any more.

We have enough bureaucracy to deal with anyway, don't need the extra stress that someone may make a complaint behind our back claiming that we misled them or didn't disclose something, when there is clear evidence that we did the right thing. It's waste of time and effort for both parties.

I'm sure that there are genuine cases where a complaint is reasonable or even necessary, but things can normally be easily resolved by having a conversation to clear up any misunderstandings.

minimike2

I should probably also share the only other complaint I have ever received - This time I had made an error and it is the only time I have ever had anything go "wrong" because of what I did, but it wasn't as simple as that.....

That error SAVED the customer over £52k in interest costs over the term of their mortgage. Yes, SAVED them, not cost them.

But they still complained because of the upfront cost of around £800 they had incurred as a result. I was again flabbergasted. I felt like saying "well let's put you back in the position you would have been if the mistake had not been made", which is the view the FoS take. I am sure they would have LOVED to pay all that extra interest.

Number75

I read these, and can't help but think of all the posts (and there are loads at the moment!) of people saying "why do I have to pay so much for an IFA to just do a bit of paperwork to transfer my DB pension..."

Good luck that this gets shut down quickly, ACG.

ACG

Everyone makes mistakes, it does not necessarily mean you are any worse off - for example, we have to write a "suitability letter" if we miss off something we are opening ourselves up to a complaint. The customer is no worse off because of that sentence and chances are the infromation was covered in a KFI and Mortgage offer but it does not stop people seeing pound signs, when I say people I mean Claims management companies usually sowing the seeds.

I remember one of the first mortgages I did, I submitted the mortgage saying the applicants had 1 kid where as they had 2 - genuine mistake. It went from passing affordability to not. The clients had paid for a valuation. I put that money back in their account and found an alternative lender before calling them to tell them that I f'd up.

People do see financial services as a murky industry but after 10 years in the industry I have only ever come across one broker I would not trust as far as I could throw, the rest are decent people.

A lot of the time issues can be resolved by just making a phone call. I would always prefer to deal with the customer directly than a CMC stiring it up. And the customer gets 100% of any payout rather than a CMC taking anything up to 25% or more.

As I say, I am off my soapbox. I just thought it would be helpful for people to see what is actually involved. We are just normal people at the end of the day...in the main :P

Geoff1963

I once had a letter from someone, demanding back pay for the period during which I had employed them. I knew it was a scam of some sort, because I've never employed anyone ; although if I had, I can well imagine the effort it would take to ensure they were all accounted for. Not sure exactly what they hoped to gain, because I could never have found their non-existent employment records.

I think I really ought to have passed that on to the police.

GingerFurball_2

ACG wrote: »

Everyone makes mistakes, it does not necessarily mean you are any worse off - for example, we have to write a "suitability letter" if we miss off something we are opening ourselves up to a complaint. The customer is no worse off because of that sentence and chances are the infromation was covered in a KFI and Mortgage offer but it does not stop people seeing pound signs, when I say people I mean Claims management companies usually sowing the seeds.

I remember one of the first mortgages I did, I submitted the mortgage saying the applicants had 1 kid where as they had 2 - genuine mistake. It went from passing affordability to not. The clients had paid for a valuation. I put that money back in their account and found an alternative lender before calling them to tell them that I f'd up.

People do see financial services as a murky industry but after 10 years in the industry I have only ever come across one broker I would not trust as far as I could throw, the rest are decent people.

A lot of the time issues can be resolved by just making a phone call. I would always prefer to deal with the customer directly than a CMC stiring it up. And the customer gets 100% of any payout rather than a CMC taking anything up to 25% or more.

As I say, I am off my soapbox. I just thought it would be helpful for people to see what is actually involved. We are just normal people at the end of the day...in the main :P

This website's as bad as any claims management company.