SVS Securities - shut down?

johnburman

What about the worry that my financial affairs and transactions are not being carried out properly, promptly, securely and I've been unable to access funds. 


Sounds a proper claim to me. 

Look we all agree non pecuniary loss is difficult to get, but why accept £300.

And yes, there may be people who get awarded more but there is no evidence of that in these posts or elsewhere 

coyrls

As I understand it you have already accepted £300, there isn't an option to go back and ask for more once you've accepted.

masonic

johnburman said:

eskbanker said:

^ Last time you posted about that (albeit without the reams of copypasta), you were invited to explain how you thought it was relevant, but failed to oblige, are you going to make any attempt to do so this time?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78710890/#Comment_78710890

I am trying to raise the line that damages for inconvenience have been awarded by the court.  Thus the FOS should do likewise, and they do, but at a lot - in my view too low - amount.  So is there any evidence that clients can ask the FOS to award higher rates of compensation? The figure of £300 seems to be more than a "typical" award; it appears to be the max that is awarded.

I think it's fair to surmise that the courts will entertain larger claims for damages than the FOS, but also have a higher burden of proof. One of the advantages of going down the small claims track of the county court is that if you have evidence that your inconvenience/distress has essentially ruined a period of your life, then you could potentially try for an award as high as £10k, where you might be limited to the £1.5k or even £750 band at the FOS. Whether you'd be successful (and whether you'd get all or part of the amount claimed if so) is of course another matter entirely, and you do have to weigh up the court fee of up to £455 which you may be able to claim back if successful. It may well be a preferred option for someone who has suffered severe distress flowing from the failures at ITI.

eskbanker

johnburman said:

What about the worry that my financial affairs and transactions are not being carried out properly, promptly, securely and I've been unable to access funds. 

Sounds a proper claim to me.

That worry is exactly the sort of distress and inconvenience that the FOS addresses, but that doesn't signify that it would form the basis of (or even part of) a court claim for breach of contract, where the burden of proof is somewhat higher and scope of claims narrower.

johnburman said:

Look we all agree non pecuniary loss is difficult to get, but why accept £300.

Because that's the amount determined by the independent body dealing with hundreds of thousands of consumer complaints against financial institutions - if you don't want to accept it and believe that you'd fare better in court then the obvious answer is to put your money where your mouth is and try it!

johnburman said:

And yes, there may be people who get awarded more but there is no evidence of that in these posts or elsewhere 

I thought I'd read a poster suggesting that they'd obtained more for their specific circumstances, but it was a while ago - however, I'm not necessarily claiming that people have been awarded more, but simply that if they make a compelling case for more then they should.  In the context of the published FOS compensation tiers, did you escalate your claim to an ombudsman if you felt that you deserved to be on a higher one?  If not, why not, but if so, has it reached a decision yet?

johnburman

The FOS paid me out many months ago so we are crying over spilt milk.  But loss and inconvenience must properly be a head of damage in a court claim and it is, see previous for Jarvis and also para 274 here https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/TCC/2007/3023.html

(a) General damages will be allowed to each of the claimants for inconvenience, distress and discomfort caused by breaches of contract.(b) The amount allowable for this will be modest.

But is not £300 too 'modest'?

BUT advice for others lurking in this forum is to CLAIM on the FOS, but do not necessarily accept £300 for all your losses.  I believe that you should tell the FCA about the service you have had with ITI.

IanManc

johnburman said:

The FOS paid me out many months ago so we are crying over spilt milk.  But loss and inconvenience must properly be a head of damage in a court claim and it is, see previous for Jarvis and also para 274 here https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/TCC/2007/3023.html

(a) General damages will be allowed to each of the claimants for inconvenience, distress and discomfort caused by breaches of contract.(b) The amount allowable for this will be modest.

But is not £300 too 'modest'?

BUT advice for others lurking in this forum is to CLAIM on the FOS, but do not necessarily accept £300 for all your losses.  I believe that you should tell the FCA about the service you have had with ITI.

You lump "loss" and "inconvenience" together, but they are different things.

Basically much of contract law is about loss arising from breach or non-performance of contracts. It isn't loss that you keep going on about though, so stop confusing the issue by lumping that in with "inconvenience", or worry, or any the other sorts of distress you are saying that you've been caused.

As has already been established, the Jarvis case has no application or relevance to the point you are trying to make. This is the third time you have cited it in this thread, and it is no more relevant now than it was the first time you cited it.

The Cunningham Lindsey case that you are now trying to use is a significant case in Construction Law. It follows a long line of construction cases which state that a modest sum is to be allowed in damages for "physical inconvenience and discomfort together with mental suffering" caused by breaches of contract during building works in residential properties.

That doesn't have any application to the point you are trying to establish either.

However, if you can find any precedent in a financial services contract case that establishes a head of damages and quantum  for "inconvenience" or any of the feelings you seem to have suffered as as result of the issues you've had with SVS then I'd be interested.

Once you've found a case that establishes a head of damages, then you can start to consider any associated precedents concerning quantum that arise from the precedent.

eskbanker

johnburman said:

The FOS paid me out many months ago so we are crying over spilt milk.

The royal 'we' perhaps?

Perhaps you missed my questions about that, so I'll repeat them:

In the context of the published FOS compensation tiers, did you escalate your claim to an ombudsman if you felt that you deserved to be on a higher one?  If not, why not, but if so, has it reached a decision yet?

johnburman said:

But loss and inconvenience must properly be a head of damage in a court claim and it is, see previous for Jarvis and also para 274 here https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/TCC/2007/3023.html

(a) General damages will be allowed to each of the claimants for inconvenience, distress and discomfort caused by breaches of contract.(b) The amount allowable for this will be modest.

But is not £300 too 'modest'?

I don't think anyone has asserted that a court can't or won't award damages under this sort of heading, but it's all about context and the issue remains that the examples you quote aren't anywhere close to the scenario of a financial institution dragging its heels over broking services.  From a quick skim, the specific one you've alighted on here seems to relate to a botched multi-year building job, requiring the owners to live elsewhere for a sustained period, which would clearly involve an entirely different level of distress and inconvenience!  You'll presumably contend that this is simply a matter of quantum, but on what basis do you quantify your distress and inconvenience as higher than £300?

johnburman said:

BUT advice for others lurking in this forum is to CLAIM on the FOS, but do not necessarily accept £300 for all your losses.

As above, actions speak louder than words, but yes, it's obviously open to anyone dissatisfied with an FOS adjudication to escalate it to an ombudsman if they believe they'd get a better outcome there.  However, as far as I'm aware, there have only been two post-SVS ITI cases that have made it that far, in both of which the ombudsman agreed with the adjudicator's assessment of £250 (which was also ITI's own assessment in one of these):

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN-3070547.pdf
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN-3112315.pdf

I think it's been discussed on some of the previous occasions where you've advocated court action but don't believe that anyone is aware of any such cases being brought?

johnburman

Sorry I did not answer your question.  The answer is no I did not.  My family had several accounts and claims and so rather than wait we (possibly foolishly) took was what offered.  Knowing what I know now, and the sloth of the FOS, I would have issued in the county court.  But to be fair I would have had to give disclosure of all my emails with them which would have cost a few trees in paper, and broken my printer!

eskbanker

johnburman said:

Sorry I did not answer your question.  The answer is no I did not.  My family had several accounts and claims and so rather than wait we (possibly foolishly) took was what offered.  Knowing what I know now, and the sloth of the FOS, I would have issued in the county court.

Out of curiosity, what do you know now that you didn't then, other than 'the sloth of the FOS'?  What was the rush to accept the compo, if the relevant ITI actions (access to accounts, processing of transfers, etc) had been completed long before that?

RasputinB

eskbanker said:

[DRN5603751 Ombudsman Simon Pugh stated that "complaint handling isn’t a regulated activity".]

"Seems an odd comment to make, when it's clearly subject to the FCA's DISP mandates!" and "I can't understand that comment as written!"

"To me it's clear that (despite the strange comment above) the FOS stance is that they'll consider the extent to which complaint handling is consistent with DISP, but they're not feeling obliged to take a position on the tone of a conversation rather than its actual content or outcome."

"FOS effectively say that they're driven not just by the letter of the law but the spirit."

Some years before the SVS / ITI Capital saga I had a complaint about another stockbroker that was escalated to the FOS.
After making a Subject Access Request to get the FOS files on my case I learnt that the company had lied to the adjudicator about the content of a telephone conversation.
I made no claim for compensation for the way the company handled my complaint as the adjudicator and the adjudicator's manager (an ombudsman) had repeatedly told me that "complaint handling isn’t a regulated activity under our rules".
I'm now considering raising the matter as a separate claim for compensation.
In the Final Decision the ombudsman did not uphold the part my claim for compensation for the time I had spent dealing with my complaint (time that was increased by the company misreporting the content of the telephone conversation) but did agree that I could make subsequent complaints.

I guess that your view may not count for much in the eyes of the FOS but I wonder if "Money Saving Expert" would be interested in the greater picture? Surely it deserves some attention if the FOS do not work in the way that you think they do or in the way they say they do?