Co-operative bank refusing to pay £125 refer-a-friend offer FOS case

Alex9384

Rudyson said:

Also it takes up time that could be used investigating far more serious breaches, where people have lost significant amounts, rather than failing to get a bonus.
 

It's Coop to blame. Even after all those complaints, they still didn't rewrite their T&C.

For example:
Coop Feb offer T&C: The Recommended Friend is entitled to only one payment
Coop May offer T&C: The Recommended Friend is entitled to only one incentive payment

Still no mention of "once in a lifetime" or "you can't have ever had switch bonus from Coop".

How hard is it to add a few words like that?

They obviously went through their T&C and added the word "incentive" but they decided not to change the ambiguous parts, so they can keep avoiding future pay outs to people who switch to them but have had a bonus from Coop long time ago. Coop still reports new customers switching to them from another bank, so their stats look better.

Do all Coop defenders in this thread want to tell me that they immediately knew what is meant by "one payment"? For comparison, other banks also mention "one payment" in their T&Cs, but you can still get more than one switch bonus from them after a certain time period. Those banks who only pay you once in a lifetime, state it clearly in their T&C. Except Coop.

SwiftSuzie

I think it stands to reason. They want you to join them and they will pay you an incentive to do so. Clearly, they are not looking for that to repeat periodically. What happens if you are successful the 2nd time? Does that give licence for a 3rd attempt? And so on? This will create expense for these businesses that will be paid for by everyone. 

Alex9384

SwiftSuzie said:

I think it stands to reason. They want you to join them and they will pay you an incentive to do so. Clearly, they are not looking for that to repeat periodically. What happens if you are successful the 2nd time? Does that give licence for a 3rd attempt? And so on? This will create expense for these businesses that will be paid for by everyone. 

Then why not be clear about it in their T&C? Can you think of any reason?

Clearly you can get incentives from some other banks more than once.

TheBanker

I think the Co-op are to blame for this situation.

When they designed the offer, I don't think they intended for people to benefit multiple times. And I think even those complaining would agree they are manipulating the system to a degree. However, it was within the Co-op's gift to have clear terms and conditions. Every other bank that offers switching incentives makes it very clear who qualifies, and generally has an term setting out that people who have received previous incentives since xx date are not eligible. If the Co-op had done this, then the current situation would not have occurred. 

And when it became clear some people had interpreted the terms and conditions in a way that may not have been aligned to the Co-op's intention, they had the opportunity to address this by amending the T&Cs. They didn't do this either. 

As I said in a previous post, the Co-op are paying FOS to deal with these cases, so they're not really diverting FOS resources from other complaints, because FOS income is directly linked to the number of complaints they handle. Fewer complaints = less money = fewer staff. FOS are probably profiting from these complaints given it looks like they've done one generic investigation, so the Co-op are actually helping other complainants by cross-subsidising their investigations.

Ed-1

Success at last (in this case at least).

ForumUser7

Ed-1 said:

Success at last (in this case at least).

Great News - @bridlington1 any updates on your case?

Bridlington1

ForumUser7 said:

Ed-1 said:

Success at last (in this case at least).

Great News - @bridlington1 any updates on your case?

This is indeed terrific news. Many thanks to @Ed-1 for updating us with the outcome, let's hope they rule the same way on the rest of the cases. 

I am yet to receive a response from the Ombudsman, I suspect it will be delayed slightly due to my having been given a 2 week extension to provide evidence. Naturally I shall update this thread once they get back to me.

WillPS

Thank goodness for that. Hopefully the investigators are sufficiently updated and/or retrained.

Section62

Ed-1 said:

Success at last (in this case at least).

Excellent outcome!

Did you highlight to the Ombudsman the "clear, fair and not misleading" issue based on BCOBS (e.g. as per my post earlier in the thread) yourself, or did the Ombudsman come up with that on their own?

I wonder why the investigator didn't apply that test in the first place.

Ed-1

Section62 said:

Ed-1 said:

Success at last (in this case at least).

Excellent outcome!

Did you highlight to the Ombudsman the "clear, fair and not misleading" issue based on BCOBS (e.g. as per my post earlier in the thread) yourself, or did the Ombudsman come up with that on their own?

I wonder why the investigator didn't apply that test in the first place.

I didn't mention it. But the Ombudsmen are clued up.