How long should it take for financial ombudsman to assign a case advisor ?

Blackbird69

Hello
i submitted a complaint to the financial ombudsman in No 2022 about car finance with MotoNovo (after following all protocols with the lender) 
the financial ombudsman gave me a complaint number , but I have yet to be assigned a case advisor/investigator - a year on! I have chased them at least four times and every time they come back to me to say I should have an advisor assigned to me very soon.
I appreciate they are overloaded with cases but I don’t know what else to do.
how long should I have to wait and how can I complain about the lack of service - feel like I’m going round in circles with both the lender and the financial ombudsman.
thank you for any advice 

DullGreyGuy

You can complain about the lack of service, in a previous case of mine I ended up getting more monies from the ombudsman for their poor service than I did from the company I was complaining to however in my case it was a "time is of the essence" and ultimately they took so long that plan b, sue the retailer, became statute barred. 

They state that their current target is to appoint an investigator within 3 months on average however note that timescales are different for different specialisms (without giving more detail). Assuming you say you logged the complaint in November 2022 then I'd have already complained for not having an investigator yet. 

eskbanker

Theoretically, two to three months for car finance cases:

How long it takes

In general, for most types of complaints about credit and borrowing money, including car finance, it takes around two to three months for us to allocate cases. However, it can sometimes take longer, depending on what your complaint is about. 

We’re working hard to reduce this wait time, so you may hear from us sooner than this.

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/complaints-can-help/credit-borrowing-money

Not sure there's much you can actually do about longer delays, other than perhaps raising with your MP?

Section62

DullGreyGuy said:

You can complain about the lack of service, in a previous case of mine I ended up getting more monies from the ombudsman for their poor service than I did from the company I was complaining to however in my case it was a "time is of the essence" and ultimately they took so long that plan b, sue the retailer, became statute barred. 

+1 for the above.

Rob5342

I've mad quite a number of complaints to them and the investigator has usually been assigned within 2-4 months, however I had one case where it took almost a year. There's doesn't seem to be a lot of logic to it, I've had some cases where the investigator has been assigned while I'm still waiting for an investigator to be assigned for cases that were a few months older. 

Blackbird69

Thank you very much for your replies. It has made me feel a little more confident about being stronger and it’s the financial ombudsman