SVS Securities - shut down?

masonic

RasputinB said:

eskbanker said:

The ombudsman escalation would be expected to introduce further delay but would normally require one of the parties to request it rather than it simply happening as a result of lack of progress.

I'd agree with that but you may not be aware of the fact that the FOS had an arrangement with ITI Capital where a more pragmatic approach could be taken. This may include automatically escalating to an ombudsman. What it certainly did include was "we will not record the outcomes of complaints settled with consumers during this period as ‘upheld’".
So much for transparency!

This is surprising. You are saying that an Ombudsman is making decisions, but withholding them from the database that "holds all the final decisions we’ve published since 1 April 2013 under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, as amended by the Financial Services Act 2012"? It has always been the case that a complaint settled prior to issuance of a final decision by an Ombudsman is not published.

eskbanker

RasputinB said:

eskbanker said:

The ombudsman escalation would be expected to introduce further delay but would normally require one of the parties to request it rather than it simply happening as a result of lack of progress.

I'd agree with that but you may not be aware of the fact that the FOS had an arrangement with ITI Capital where a more pragmatic approach could be taken. This may include automatically escalating to an ombudsman. What it certainly did include was "we will not record the outcomes of complaints settled with consumers during this period as ‘upheld’".
So much for transparency!

I understood from previous posts that there was a certain amount of batching up of similar complaints going on (which I assume is behind the above reference to a spreadsheet being passed between FOS and ITI), but wasn't aware that there was any material variance from their published procedures - your quoted comment presumably comes from correspondence you've received from FOS, but what supports your view about automatic escalation?

RasputinB

eskbanker said:

your quoted comment presumably comes from correspondence you've received from FOS, but what supports your view about automatic escalation?

1. Working together to proactively settle complaints – an update on our outcome codes initiative (financial-ombudsman.org.uk)
2. I just thought it might make sense to tell a company that if it uses the "outcome codes initiative" but fails to respond within reasonable deadlines then the FOS could escalate to an ombudsman (with associated costs to the company?). 

johnburman

All very interesting but how do you get more compensation?

Despite my claims being settled by the FOS ages ago, my feeling is now we should have brought cases in the country court small claims division. 

johnburman

This could form a benchmark for the FOS perhaps? Especially as the FOS award very little for non pecuniary loss 

masonic

johnburman said:

This could form a benchmark for the FOS perhaps? Especially as the FOS award very little for non pecuniary loss 

The FOS won't adopt any court precedence. They have their own internal process and compensation scales. Small claims track is as far as I'm aware a bit more of a gamble when it comes to compensation for distress and inconvenience, with a higher burden of evidence, but quite possible that you could get a better outcome if your arguments are compelling enough. I certainly wouldn't want to encourage someone to take that risk when an assured level of compensation could be obtained via FOS, but it would be interesting to compare and contrast.

eskbanker

RasputinB said:

eskbanker said:

your quoted comment presumably comes from correspondence you've received from FOS, but what supports your view about automatic escalation?

1. Working together to proactively settle complaints – an update on our outcome codes initiative (financial-ombudsman.org.uk)
2. I just thought it might make sense to tell a company that if it uses the "outcome codes initiative" but fails to respond within reasonable deadlines then the FOS could escalate to an ombudsman (with associated costs to the company?). 

Interesting - I wasn't aware of that initiative, but still don't see anything suggesting that it would involve automatic ombudsman escalation, especially when its raison d'etre seems to be to temporarily allow a shortened process to deal with a backlog.

As you say, the temporary initiative compromises transparency by virtue of introducing an additional neutral outcome, although the consultation document and the response accept this and suggest some mitigating measures - however, as mentioned in previous posts, there never seem to be enough ITI complaints to trigger inclusion on the firm-specific data published by the FCA, so there isn't really any sort of benchmark as to their FOS uphold rates anyway!

RasputinB

johnburman said:

All very interesting but how do you get more compensation?

If you have a separate distinctive complaint, or complaints, you could hope to get compensation for each. But if you have already accepted compensation on a "full and final" basis and weren't very specific about the particular complaint then chances are that won't work.
And you may want to factor in your time. It seems to me that any ex SVS client can get £250 without much work. But if you expect £400 I think you'll find that ITI will dig their heels in and the FOS is unlikely to help you much unless you can show that you actually suffered a quantifiable loss. If you can do that you could try court action but the point eskbanker has made (a few times) is that you'd be unlikely to obtain any more than you would through the FOS.
But if you want to spend some interesting time I'd recommend looking at Russia Archive and searching the Internet for background on the Da Vinci money!

RasputinB

eskbanker said: there never seem to be enough ITI complaints to trigger inclusion on the firm-specific data published by the FCA

Yet it was reported that well over a thousand Data Subject Access Requests were received by the administrators.
There were plenty of complaints made! I've never used a claim management company but I am beginning to think that I should have.
Is it possible to make a comparison between the amount of compensation that CMCs obtained for ex SVS clients and the amount through the FOS? So far the transparency of the FOS allows us to see what? £550?

[Edited to add that complaints and claims made against SVS aren't comparable with those against ITI. What I'm getting at is the different approach and the different handling of claims, and I suspect a much bigger payout to clients of the former company.]

eskbanker

There are two public domain datasets pertaining to firm-specific complaints data that I'm aware of - the FOS referrals are discussed at https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78790224/#Comment_78790224

There is also a separate set of FCA data relating to complaints at a gross level, i.e. including those dealt with by the firm without escalation to FOS, i.e. the overwhelming majority, so the threshold here is 500 per six month period rather than the 30 for the FOS ones.

I haven't seen any ITI complaints within these published datasets, which either means that the volumes aren't high enough to qualify or perhaps that ITI haven't been updating the FCA....

In terms of quantum, I don't know of anything made public other than individual FOS final decisions - is anyone aware of any reliable data on this?