Current FOS Ombudsman experience: is their first acceptance reply taking more than 7 working days?

Annemos

Good evening. 

I sent in a Complaint to FOS, with my Final Response Letter, on June 11th 2024 evening. Against Insurance Company. 

No-Reply e-mail came straight back and said this:  


If we can help, you can expect to hear back from us within 7 working days. Due to the volume of enquiries we receive, we are only able to reply to those customers we can help.

If we can help, you can expect to hear back from us within 7 working days.


I am freaking out a bit now, as I have not heard anything and it has been 7 working days. 

Has anyone any current experience of this? 

(It worries me because they say, they only reply if they can help. I know I do have a valid thing for the FOS.)

Am I worrying too much? 

Thanks everyone. (Have a good weekend!) 

dunstonh

I am freaking out a bit now, as I have not heard anything and it has been 7 working days. 

No need to freak out.  Its early days.  It maybe weeks or months before it is allocated to someone. 

You can blame Martin on this as he is encouraging complaints about motor finance even though the process is on hold pending an FCA report in September.    The FOS is inundated with these at the moment.   

Am I worrying too much? 

Yes.  You have your acknowledgement email.  So, you are safe on timescales to refer it.  Now you wait.

Annemos

Thanks dunstonh.  I realise it will take ages for it to be actually allocated to someone. 

But I imagined we would get a mail within 7 working days confirming they had accepted it and would get back to us later when it gets actually allocated. 

Now I am just thinking it has been refused and I am one of those they won't ever contact. 

I find this quite stressful. If it said we aim to get back to you .... that would be better. 

Annemos

PS I notice the part of the FOS that deals with Claim Management Companies is saying 10 working days. 

liveletlive

You can blame Martin on this as he is encouraging complaints about motor finance even though the process is on hold pending an FCA report in September.    The FOS is inundated with these at the moment.   

Thats a heck of an assumption, due to my unfortunate situation I've had a lot of dealings with insurance companies recently. Their default answer is no, for issues that are specifically covered the insurance companies are rejecting claims. My five year old was in hospital and they denied out claim. I had to pin point the wording for them to pay out.

I also tried to use my legal cover, immediately the claim was denied by the insurance then final letter was provided. Again I had to in point the clause to FOS to overturn the decision.

I've said this before insurance companies are out of control.

Word of warning to the OP, you are right to be cautious as FOS are under pressure and cutting corner such a making a decision prematurely.

(respectfully don't try to decipher my message for subtle errors, Im not in the game of lying of twisting the truth)

DullGreyGuy

Annemos said:

Good evening. 

I sent in a Complaint to FOS, with my Final Response Letter, on June 11th 2024 evening. Against Insurance Company. 

No-Reply e-mail came straight back and said this:  


If we can help, you can expect to hear back from us within 7 working days. Due to the volume of enquiries we receive, we are only able to reply to those customers we can help.

If we can help, you can expect to hear back from us within 7 working days.


I am freaking out a bit now, as I have not heard anything and it has been 7 working days. 

Has anyone any current experience of this? 

(It worries me because they say, they only reply if they can help. I know I do have a valid thing for the FOS.)

Am I worrying too much? 

Thanks everyone. (Have a good weekend!) 

The quickest ever FOS complaint I've had resolved took 4 months, the slowest was over 2 years (still quicker than the Parliamentary and Health Ombudsman). Most over the years have been in the 6-9 month range but I've never been jumping on the bandwagon of PPI, DCA etc which tend to get inundated and take longer. 

Annemos

My problem this time is.... when you submit the on-line form and they say they will acknowledge it within 7 working days "if they can help". 

But, we do not hear anything at all within 7 working days, then we start to think we have been rejected. (And they will never reply.)

Frankly, this is a very unpleasant experience this time. 

(Did I do the form wrongly? Did the Computer lose me? Etc etc.) 


I did one during Covid and their auto response then just said "We will take ages". There was nothing at all about "if we cannot help you, then we just won't reply.) That time they replied after a month, with a request for documents. I was not worried at all that first time. This time feels very different.

DullGreyGuy

Annemos said:

My problem this time is.... when you submit the on-line form and they say they will acknowledge it within 7 working days "if they can help". 

But, we do not hear anything at all within 7 working days, then we start to think we have been rejected. (And they will never reply.)

Frankly, this is a very unpleasant experience this time. 

(Did I do the form wrongly? Did the Computer lose me? Etc etc.) 


I did one during Covid and their auto response then just said "We will take ages". There was nothing at all about "if we cannot help you, then we just won't reply.) That time they replied after a month, with a request for documents. I was not worried at all that first time. This time feels very different.

I had similar, 8th December I got the auto-email saying "if we can help, contact in 7 days". The next thing we got was 27th December with an email saying they know my complaint isn't resolved yet but would I answer a survey of my experience to date.

Spoke to them a few days later saying Im happy to complete the survey but having done nothing but submit a complaint and a broken SLA on receiving a response I'm not sure they'll like what I have to say. They did claim another email had been sent between the two saying that it was going to be investigated and awaiting someone to be appointed but I never got that. This was my quickest ever complaint as it was finally resolved at the end of March

Annemos

Oh noooooo.  I hope you were more chilled out than I am!  Thank you for the SLA mention. 

I will try and give them call. I have sent an e-mail, but it takes 7 days for a reply and again it says "if they can help!"

dunstonh

Thats a heck of an assumption, due to my unfortunate situation I've had a lot of dealings with insurance companies recently. Their default answer is no, for issues that are specifically covered the insurance companies are rejecting claims. My five year old was in hospital and they denied out claim. I had to pin point the wording for them to pay out.

Services like the FOS employ staff to handle a certain volume of cases.    DCA has generated over 20,000 complaints according to a recent press release.   This is despite the whole process being on-hold pending the FCA review (and potentially the judicial review - which may hold up the FCA review).      20,000 extra referrals when they deal with around 160,000 new complaints a year (165,149 in 22/23 and 164,560 in 21/22) is a significant increase in workload.   motor finance is now the 5th highest complained about product having seen an 85% increase year on year. (1321 complaints in Q3 2021/22 but now 4421 in Q4 22/23 gives you indication of the increase)

Common sense is that you do not refer your case to the FOS until the FCA complete their review.  However, that is what is being encouraged.   And it means that consumers will pay more and suffer delays in other areas because of that.

Phoenix72

Little bit OTT reaction? It's 1 day past their 7 days and by your own admission are freaking out.

If it were a week past then I'd start chasing but not 1 day.