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

Zopa_Trooper

Your best bet now Bridlington is to sting them for a dozen or so referrals at £125 a time. No limit according to MSE and I'm sure you are not short of "friends" on here. 

flaneurs_lobster

Zopa_Trooper said:

Your best bet now Bridlington 

That's "Mr C" to you..

masonic

Nice to see an occasional Ombudsman decision overturning that of an investigator, it's quite a high bar. Congratulations!

Now follows a public service announcement to others in this situation:

• If you were also refused the incentive for this reason and did not bother to formally complain to Co-op bank, then you can do so now and on the weight of this decision should be able to get your bonus paid.
• If you were refused the incentive and did formally complain to Co-op bank and you are still within 6 months of Co-op bank's final response, you are still within time to escalate to the FOS with reference to this decision.
• If you have an ongoing case at the FOS, then it could do no harm to bring this decision to the attention of your adjudicator/investigator.

There will be a few weeks delay until this decision is published, but perhaps @Bridlington1 would be able/willing to provide a DRN reference if needed by anyone? (not sure if this is provided to the complainant in advance of it being published)

Bridlington1

masonic said:

Nice to see an occasional Ombudsman decision overturning that of an investigator, it's quite a high bar. Congratulations!

Now follows a public service announcement to others in this situation:

• If you were also refused the incentive for this reason and did not bother to formally complain to Co-op bank, then you can do so now and on the weight of this decision should be able to get your bonus paid.
• If you were refused the incentive and did formally complain to Co-op bank and you are still within 6 months of Co-op bank's final response, you are still within time to escalate to the FOS with reference to this decision.
• If you have an ongoing case at the FOS, then it could do no harm to bring this decision to the attention of your adjudicator/investigator.

There will be a few weeks delay until this decision is published, but perhaps @Bridlington1 would be able/willing to provide a DRN reference if needed by anyone? (not sure if this is provided to the complainant in advance of it being published)

Many thanks, I must say it certainly has been a rather nice start to the week.

Unfortunately I do not yet have a decision reference number, all I've got is the original complaint reference number at the moment so shalln't share that on a public forum, however as soon as I become aware of the decision reference number I shall of course post it on this thread for others to refer to as necessary.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank all those who took the time to reply to this thread and wish anyone else with similar complaints the very best of luck.

Section62

Bridlington1 said:

Many thanks, I must say it certainly has been a rather nice start to the week.

Unfortunately I do not yet have a decision reference number, all I've got is the original complaint reference number at the moment so shalln't share that on a public forum, however as soon as I become aware of the decision reference number I shall of course post it on this thread for others to refer to as necessary.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank all those who took the time to reply to this thread and wish anyone else with similar complaints the very best of luck.

Great result!

We'll never know whether the ombudsman would have known "fair, clear and not misleading" already, but they do quote your use of this phrase so they must have at least read that part of your submission referencing BCOBS.

Seems fairly clear these are the magic words to use in similar complaints.

For anyone else going through the same, the background and source of this phrase is here -

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80005605/#Comment_80005605

Alex9384

Guys, I need to reply to my FOS investigator by 30 November, but I'm unable to send her any more emails. I was able to sent her emails before, but now all is getting returned to my inbox. Any idea what's going on? I tried to reply directly to the mail from her, I also tried to log in to the Ombudsman platform and I sent it from there, but this also got returned to my mail inbox as "Message undeliverable".

I sent another email explaining this to customer.contact@ and now are waiting for their reply which may take who knows how long. Unless they reply today or tomorrow, I'm going to miss the deadline to reply to my investigator.

Any ideas?

ForumUser7

Alex9384 said:

Guys, I need to reply to my FOS investigator by 30 November, but I'm unable to send her any more emails. I was able to sent her emails before, but now all is getting returned to my inbox. Any idea what's going on? I tried to reply directly to the mail from her, I also tried to log in to the Ombudsman platform and I sent it from there, but this also got returned to my mail inbox as "Message undeliverable".

I sent another email explaining this to customer.contact@ and now are waiting for their reply which may take who knows how long. Unless they reply today or tomorrow, I'm going to miss the deadline to reply to my investigator.

Any ideas?

Have you tried calling the FOS through the number on their site or the one the investigator provided you in the footer of the email? Really worth doing so if you can

Alex9384

ForumUser7 said:

Have you tried calling the FOS through the number on their site or the one the investigator provided you in the footer of the email? Really worth doing so if you can

I just asked them on Facebook and it turned out the investigator is no longer working there. No one was bothered to let me know, her email was just deactivated and that's it.
So I sent another email to their complaint.info address and I guess a new investigator will contact me.

Section62

Alex9384 said:

ForumUser7 said:

Have you tried calling the FOS through the number on their site or the one the investigator provided you in the footer of the email? Really worth doing so if you can

I just asked them on Facebook and it turned out the investigator is no longer working there. No one was bothered to let me know, her email was just deactivated and that's it.
So I sent another email to their complaint.info address and I guess a new investigator will contact me.

You might want to consider turning that into a complaint about the FOS service.  The cases should have been reassigned, the new investigator should have got in touch to explain the situation.

You should also be able to ask for an extension of time, provided you make the request before the deadline.

Alex9384

Section62 said:

You might want to consider turning that into a complaint about the FOS service.  The cases should have been reassigned, the new investigator should have got in touch to explain the situation.

You should also be able to ask for an extension of time, provided you make the request before the deadline.

Thanks. So I sent them email explaining what happened and received response from a new investigator who is now assigned to my case. They asked me to send them emails from my first investigator and I also added my response to the original findings, including the ombudsman's final response from this forum in my email.I'm now wondering what's the chance that the new investigator will come to different conclusion than the first investigator, given that they now have even more info and I also made some counter-points to claims of the original investigator.