Can complaint be resolved without my consent

Smick100

I have a John Lewis MasterCard which I have 100% direct debit set up on.

In my most recent statement I noticed that a DD had been unpaid and I was charged £12 as a penalty fee. There were funds in my account at the time and no sign of an unpaid DD in my current account.

I phoned them and asked why this had happened and was told that they had had IT issues and that they would refund the fee. I had already made the payment manually by the time I phoned them.

The agent said she could provide compensation and I said that I would rather raise this as an official complaint so I could find out why this had happened.

Today I noticed that JLFS FP have made a £25 credit to my current account.

I phoned to enquire why this had happened and have been told that the complaint has been closed and that is the compensation which I am to receive.

I was of the opinion that in order to close a complaint, they need to write to me and let me know what has happened, make an offer of compensation, if appropriate, and give me the right to accept or reject their resolution. If I reject it, they come back a second time and then I have the right to go to the ombudsman.

Is this the case?

[Deleted User]

You can reject it, but I doubt a better offer will be forthcoming, either from JL or the Ombudsman.

They won't give you a breakdown of the specific reasons behind the error.

Willing2Learn

Just wanted to add that although JL refunded the £12 late payment fee, have you checked your three credit files to make sure it was not inaccurately recorded against you?

Mrsn

Complaints are quiet often closed when the company deems they have dealt with it satisfactorily from their perspective. You won’t always be given the option to accept or reject their compensation as it’s an extra so to speak. Realistically all they had to do was refund the £12 and ensure your credit file was updated accordingly.

jonesMUFCforever

OP - do you remember if they said something like this to you? ''Mr OP we apologise for our IT error - we will compensate you to the tune of £25 is that ok with you?''
Unless you categorically said no, the complaint would be closed IMO.

agrinnall

I'm not sure what you were holding out for, they have already told you they had an IT issue and there is close to no chance that they will ever tell you anything more than that. Take the £25 and be grateful, I don't really think they needed to have offered you anything after refunding the £12.

System

I've never seen HSBC (the card operator) as giving particularly good customer service.

You've complained but don't appear to asked for any particular resolution so they've removed the fee and given you an ex-gratia payment for £25 to shut you up effectively.

Smick100

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

OP - do you remember if they said something like this to you? ''Mr OP we apologise for our IT error - we will compensate you to the tune of £25 is that ok with you?''
Unless you categorically said no, the complaint would be closed IMO.

She offered unspecified compensation and I said that I would rather have it raised as a complaint so it will be investigated and I would be responded to rather than killing it dead there.

I guess I thought that by accepting compensation, it wouldn't be seen as a complaint.

I don't really have a great need for £25, while it may seem generous given the impact. Compensation is not my motivation.

I just think that to credit a current account without explaining it to someone is unusual. I had to phone them to tell them of the issue with the account, not them tell me or rectify it. Then I had to phone them to ask why they had credited my current account.

agrinnall

But compensation is all you're going to get, they are not going to give you any more information on what the technical issue was. Even if you went to the FOS they wouldn't require HSBC to tell you anything more than they already have.

18cc

If you raise an formal complaint then no they can't close it without your agreement

from what you are saying either they assumed they had your implied agreement to close it because of the £25 payment or it wasn't raised as a proper official complaint - just the csr giving you £25 as compensation there and then

it is up to you now whether you accept that compensation and move on or whether you raise the original complaint about the missing direct debit again ensuring this time it is registered as a proper formal complaint

eskbanker

18cc wrote: »

If you raise an formal complaint then no they can't close it without your agreement

What makes you say that?

The FCA regulations governing complaint handling by financial institutions dictate that they can eventually issue a final response (thereby closing it), and the fact that such complaints can at that stage be escalated to the FOS clearly demonstrates that these won't have been closed off by agreement with the customer.

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm

Customer consent would be an impractical barrier for complaint closure in any organisation for that matter, but the process is reasonably well defined in financial services....