Do you trust Financial Ombudsman?

HappyUser

I have extremely negative experience with Financial Ombudsman. They completely backup the banks and similar companies.


What is your opinion?

[Deleted User]

Such as? Examples?

jonesMUFCforever

For me its 50-50!

However to get a FREE shot at something rather than having to pay a legal professional must be a good thing.

JuicyJesus

Short answer: As much as one can.

Long answer: All Ombudsman's final decisions are published in an anonymised form for everyone to see. People can see their reasoning. I read them for fun because I'm sad, and have done for the past few years. In general, while there are one or two cases where I've been baffled at the tack they've taken, they are very consistently in the right on these things and have impartially considered the facts as they have them. Where they back up a bank or back up a consumer, they give reasonable grounds for this.

One thing I can say is that in a lot of cases where people complain about FOS being biased towards the banks, what has actually happened is that FOS has rejected their complaint on reasonable grounds and they're upset that FOS hasn't acted as a champion for them. FOS aren't a consumer champion, they're supposed to be impartial, and in general they are.

It's also a bit of a nonsense suggesting they're not because banks in general actually react to FOS' decisions and make amendments to their own policies and procedures to try and head off common lines of complaint, or adapt to what FOS considers fair in all the circumstances. If FOS didn't ever rule against banks, this wouldn't happen.

Keep_pedalling

Looking at this and your last thread, I think you need a new user name.

What is your evidence that they back up the banks?

PixelPound

You have to remember there are two points of view in these scenarios - you the consumer/debtor and the creditor/financial organisation/service provider; both may have valid arguments and be justified from their point of view.

As stated they will investigate your dispute at no cost to you, if they side with the creditor and not you it does not prevent you from taking further action, and in cases they side with you, it has saved you costs. Indeed having gone through the creditors complain process and escalating it to FOS could mean that in cases they have found against you, you have a lot of information useful for what options to exclude if taking further action.

antrobus

HappyUser wrote: »

I have extremely negative experience with Financial Ombudsman. They completely backup the banks and similar companies.


What is your opinion?

Perhaps you can provide details of your "extremely negative experience" and someone might be able to explain why you were unsuccessful.

FOS do not "completely backup the banks and similar companies", They publish statistics. For example, 97% of PPI complaints against American Express were resolved in favour of the consumer.

http://www.ombudsman-complaints-data.org.uk/

longleggedhair

I have used the FOS twice in the past 20 years. Both times (in my opinion) the company had behaved very badly, however the ombudsman ruled in the company's favour on both occasions. So from my limited vantage point I don't hold much faith in them and wouldn't bother again.

JuicyJesus

longleggedhair wrote: »

I have used the FOS twice in the past 20 years. Both times (in my opinion) the company had behaved very badly, however the ombudsman ruled in the company's favour on both occasions. So from my limited vantage point I don't hold much faith in them and wouldn't bother again.

As other people have stated, the bank has arguments to make in its favour too, and they can't simply go on your words.

Are you able to provide the DRNs for your complaints (if any of them was done within the past 5 years and went to an Ombudsman's final decision) so we can see what their reasoning was? These won't identify you as the decisions are anonymised and publicly available in any event.

masonic

I've had two experiences using the Financial Ombudsman service, one several years ago and one this year. Both times they upheld my complaint and awarded me considerably more compensation than I asked for.

OceanSound

I've made about 10 complaints in the last 8 years. Sometimes Ombudsman service has been good. e.g. 1st ever complaint I made they asked Homeserve to pay for a replacement oven and compensation for worry. I've been successful after complaining about the likes of Halifax and HSBC as well.

However, there's been some awful decisions. (I know..I know..Sour grapes and all that). One was about Paypal the other was about Bank of Ceylon. Both were pretty clear cut, however, Ombudsman said 'business had done nothing wrong'.

You have more chance of success:
a) If you are complaining about some products/services (categories) than others. e.g. PPI claims generally have more chance of success than 'banking and credit'.
b) with some businesses than others. i.e. success with certain businesses are near impossible. e.g. Paypal, HSBC.

Anyone looking at the statistics on the FOS website should realise that they don't tell the whole story (if you don't look at the stats together). e.g. the '% resolved in favour of consumer' figure includes PPI claims. So, inflates this overall figure.

ALso, the 'upheld' figure does not include cases where a business has settled (by way of compensation) with the complainant before any decision is made by FOS. Many businesses do settle this way. This is how come the 'upheld in favour of consumer' will never reach 80% -90% or over.

Probably never will for TSB complaints due to the same reason.

In the most recent complaint I found that the adjudicator had rushed through issuing his view. He had left some bits of the template as it is. e.g.

I think the business have dealt with your complaint fairly - so I'm not asking them to do [anything / any more].

It wouldn't take long to read through and correct before sending to complainant. Irrespective of the outcome, disappointed that he hadn't even bothered to do that.