Report bad practice to FCA or ombudsman or Action Fraud?

dunstonh

Malthusian said:

dunstonh said:

And what evidence do you have to support that?   Your allegations are potentially libellous in themselves if you were to name the company.  

No they aren't. Libel in the UK requires the plaintiff to show that the defendant caused "serious harm". For a corporate plaintiff, "harm to the reputation of a body that trades for profit is not serious harm unless it has caused or is likely to cause serious financial loss”. 
No "serious harm" is going to be caused to a financial provider by an obviously over-the-top rant on the Internet.

An allegation of fraudulent activity, if the firm was named, would be potentially libellous.  They would claim that incorrectly accusing them of fraud on a public forum read by hundreds of thousands has cost them potential customers.

Remember that with libel, the onus is on the person accusing to provide evidence to back up their allegations.   

As we know from past cases on this site where companies have pursued posters, they often do not follow through with the court action but make sure that the individual suffers with legal costs and prolonged periods of anxiety.

Moaning about poor service is a different issue.

penners324

Report the to the FOS and ICO. 

eskbanker

onthego said:

I do appreciate that people make mistakes. This case was not due to one mistake by one person, at least two agents were aware two years ago that the documents had been provided, and this year there have been interactions with maybe 10 different agents and the money was still only paid out once the complaint was raised, after twice being promised by a certain date and then not received.  Every time all agents seem to have no record of previous interactions.  Even the complaints officer claimed not to be able to find the original interactions until the emails were re-forwarded.

All of this seems to be factual, so can legitimately be relayed to FOS.

onthego said:

There must be either an internal policy of not paying out until a complaint is received, or a lack of a necessary records system and process to deal with deceased accounts.   Financially it could be profitable for them to pretend that funds in deceased accounts do not exist, or to knowingly have a terrible process for paying them out, the small sum of compensation when they do slip up and accidentally let slip that the account exists or someone pursues all the way to a complaint would be outweighed by not paying out most of the funds.  Most beneficiaries affected wouldn’t know what they were missing out on, so the complaints would not necessarily be raised in sufficient numbers to alert the FCA.

However, by contrast, all of this is speculation, so isn't admissible in the same way....

onthego

Thank you, I hadn’t thought of ICO but on reflection this is all about continued failures to store and process data appropriately so perhaps that is an angle to take if no further reassurance is forthcoming from the company.

Thanks also for the guidance around compensation amounts from multiple posters.

I am learning more about libel than I ever imagined needing to know, please be reassured I will not name the company here, thank you.

eskbanker

onthego said:

I hadn’t thought of ICO but on reflection this is all about continued failures to store and process data appropriately so perhaps that is an angle to take if no further reassurance is forthcoming from the company.

Again the same principle applies about distinguishing between facts and supposition, i.e. it would only be legitimate to complain about the failure to handle one person's data adequately and, since that person had passed away, they unfortunately no longer had any rights under the Data Protection Act, which applies only to living people....

onthego

Oh wow.  Thanks.  So is this really just a massive loophole that every savvy financial institution should be exploiting?  Once a customer is deceased you’re allowed to lose all the information about how much of their money you hold?

eskbanker

onthego said:

Oh wow.  Thanks.  So is this really just a massive loophole that every savvy financial institution should be exploiting?  Once a customer is deceased you’re allowed to lose all the information about how much of their money you hold?

No, that's not what I'm saying at all - regulated financial institutions are required to comply with all relevant FCA regulations and are also obliged to adhere to all other generic legislation, such as the Data Protection Act.  I'm simply pointing out the fact that the latter doesn't strictly apply to this situation, in terms of offering any realistic prospect of ICO action, but obviously if a company actually lost personal information (not the scenario here), even relating to deceased customers, then that would be different.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not defending this company's apparently inadequate administrative processes, so it's justifiable to pursue them and get them to accept the consequences, but I'm just highlighting that trying to extend the scope significantly beyond a complaint about one case is unlikely to be warranted, or viable....

masonic

onthego said:

Oh wow.  Thanks.  So is this really just a massive loophole that every savvy financial institution should be exploiting?  Once a customer is deceased you’re allowed to lose all the information about how much of their money you hold?

They are still required by law to keep information such as that you describe. Lack of DPA rights is not a loophole, it is deliberate that the processing of information about deceased individuals is not subject to the same safeguards as the living. The deceased would tend to find it difficult to exercise their data protection rights, as there isn't currently an accepted means of communication with the spirit realm.