Do you trust Financial Ombudsman?

Uxb

I've had cases where I've made a complaint and rapidly got a phone call back as in the next day admitting its a mess up and offering restitution.
That's it - no further paperwork passes back and fro.

I've always assumed it that this is way of ensuing that the complaint does not get officially entered into their "formal customer complaints list" which has to be reported to the FCA etc and can be down graded to an informal moan which has been satisfactorily resolved.
All I guess so the company can reduce the number of published "formal complaints" it has received to make its stats look good.

OceanSound

@OP: You can find the answer to your question in the report published by this very site:
https://images6.moneysavingexpert.com/images/documents/MSE-Sharper_teeth_interactive.pdf?_ga=2.194908200.447885741.1534826197-570195224.1534826196

The energy ombudsman came top with just over 50% people saying Ombudsman was biased. For others (incl. Financial ombudsman) it was 60%, who thought ombudsman was biased. Most thought it was a waste of time!

JuicyJesus

Most people who don't get their complaints upheld think the decider is biased against them. Funny how the people who do get them upheld don't complain, isn't it?

JuicyJesus

Uxb wrote: »

I've had cases where I've made a complaint and rapidly got a phone call back as in the next day admitting its a mess up and offering restitution.
That's it - no further paperwork passes back and fro.

I've always assumed it that this is way of ensuing that the complaint does not get officially entered into their "formal customer complaints list" which has to be reported to the FCA etc and can be down graded to an informal moan which has been satisfactorily resolved.
All I guess so the company can reduce the number of published "formal complaints" it has received to make its stats look good.

That isn't the case. All complaints are recorded and reported to the FCA. Change took effect 29th June 2016.

peterbaker

JuicyJesus wrote: »

That isn't the case. All complaints are recorded and reported to the FCA. Change took effect 29th June 2016.

I was just about to respond to your "That's the whole point of the system" (to incentivise the banks to settle without a long drawn out claims procedure) post but now you've changed it! (I've paraphrased as I haven't yet found your original in Google cache and maybe never will if you were quick!)

So what's the whole point of the FOS system now, then?

masonic

peterbaker wrote: »

I was just about to respond to your "That's the whole point of the system" (to incentivise the banks to settle without a long drawn out claims procedure) post but now you've changed it! (I've paraphrased as I haven't yet found your original in Google cache and maybe never will if you were quick!)

Some people have too much time on their hands

So what's the whole point of the FOS system now, then?

The whole point of the FOS system is to provide a lower barrier to consumers getting their complaint reviewed by a third party than taking it to court, which very few would consider doing. A side effect of that is that banks are less likely to reject complaints they believe the FOS would uphold.

Given the statistics that around half of consumers think the FOS is biased against them, while the industry believes the FOS is biased against it, overall it probably has the balance about right.

eskbanker

Anthorn wrote: »

So without even knowing the circumstances you accuse me of "entry level extortion" and "Brinkmanship". Do you by any chance have the power to access telepathy to get that information from me? Hold on, I'll give it a try: Om ... Om. No not working.

[...]

Really, try to get your facts straight and if you don't have the facts keep quiet about something about which you have not even the foggiest idea!

My comment related only to the circumstances you yourself outlined in your post, where you claimed that threatening firms with escalation to FOS is a productive way of getting a complaint resolved in your favour. Whether it's actually true or not is another matter, but it's clearly what you were alleging....

Uxb

JuicyJesus wrote: »

That isn't the case. All complaints are recorded and reported to the FCA. Change took effect 29th June 2016.

Ah - Thank you for that:
I was indeed wondering why that particular tactic had ceased in my cases recently. That's why - the FCA banned it.

JuicyJesus

peterbaker wrote: »

I was just about to respond to your "That's the whole point of the system" (to incentivise the banks to settle without a long drawn out claims procedure) post but now you've changed it! (I've paraphrased as I haven't yet found your original in Google cache and maybe never will if you were quick!)

So what's the whole point of the FOS system now, then?

To annoy you.

peterbaker

masonic wrote: »

Some people have too much time on their hands

Indeed - some will always keep returning to argue black is white.

The whole point of the FOS system is to provide a lower barrier to consumers getting their complaint reviewed by a third party than taking it to court, which very few would consider doing.

Why do third parties need to be involved at all for such huge numbers of complaints? Is it because high volume complaint-handling interrupts the core-business at the banks? I refer earlier to my comment about complaint-handling by proxy. I see now even that FOS isn't seen in 2018 as the right sort of organisation to even deal with its own whistleblowing, never mind consumer 'whistleblowing' against banks and others.

A side effect of that is that banks are less likely to reject complaints they believe the FOS would uphold.

Sounds cosy. How do banks know which cases fall into which categories? I suppose their massive legal teams are used to managing the volumes in terms of what has caused them the biggest problems in the past? But every case is different right? So I guess that in a barrack-room lawyer way, you are alluding to volume scandals which have gained traction in the media versus volume scandals which haven't yet?

Given the statistics that around half of consumers think the FOS is biased against them, while the industry believes the FOS is biased against it, overall it probably has the balance about right.

Where exactly does that piece of rhetorically constructed pseudo-measurement of justitia tenax come from please?

The July 2018 independent review report commissioned by FOS from a presumed freshly-retired wallah from Which? Magazine (else he has too much time on his hands?) makes interesting reading.

It was commissioned at the end of April 2018 presumably in the hope it could be used as a rebuttal of the allegations in the March 2018 Channel4 Dispatches programme about institutional bias in FOS. Consequently the words 'bias' or 'biased' appear thirty times.

It was on the face of it a bit of a rush job, and perhaps one of those types of 'independent review' where readers might wonder whether anything new was actually learned beyond business as usual, and where you could actually top and tail the main 'findings' with any sort of spin for any flavour summary which you fancied. The report raises far more questions than were answered and the disclaimer at the front "Neither I, nor the Financial Ombudsman Service can be held liable for the use of and reliance on the information, opinions and findings in this review.
Richard Lloyd" may speak volumes on its own.