Crazy situation - Need some advice please (financial ombudsman situation)

DullGreyGuy

Ergates said:

boingy said:

Olenna said:

boingy said:

The important thing to understand about the ombudsman is that those "investigators" are there to weed out the weaker complaints and to deter the stronger ones. I had a 100% set-in-stone certainty of a complaint and the "investigator" still tried to dissuade me from taking it to the proper ombudsman. I stood firm and insisted and the ombudsman agreed. The bank apologised and compensated me. 

So don't take no for an answer. Ignore everything they say and insist that the case is elevated to the proper ombudsman. Those "investigator" people are like GP receptionists where their prime role seems to be to put you off disturbing the Doc rather than actually helping you.

You're seeing something that isn't there - it's just overwhelmed and poorly run like most stuff run at arms length to the British state.

No, I'm not. The "investigator" told me he saw no merit in my complaint and said there was no point escalating it to the ombudsman because they would say the same. I insisted that it be escalated and the ombudsman did not say the same. She agreed with me and upheld the complaint. It took three email exchanges with the "investigator" to get it escalated. (And you clearly haven't tried to get an appointment at my GP's surgery recently...  )

That doesn't suppport your claim that "The important thing to understand about the ombudsman is that those "investigators" are there to weed out the weaker complaints and to deter the stronger ones. " - which is suggesting that the purpose of the FOS is to prevent claims being upheld.

The main rules of the ombudsman are set out in Part 16 of FSMA; it has a statutory obligation to find a "fair and reasonable" outcomes to complaints.

The majority of complaints sent to the ombudsman are very simple things and are often people just not accepting that they didnt read their policy book or such.  Those with Ombudsman job titles are highly experienced people with salaries commensurate to their experience. 

Its fully understandable and reasonable why those basic cases get looked at my an Investigator/Adjudicator before the cases are escalated. Their salaries are typically half that of an Ombudsman and they can deal with 90% or so of cases. Firstly I doubt there are enough people wanting to work at Ombudsman level based on their current salaries such that every case is reviewed by a full ombudsman, secondly who wants their insurance or banking fees spiking massively because the Ombudsman's costs have increased 10 fold because now a lawyer looks at the complaint "I dont like their hold music" rather than an Investigator?

I mean in hospitals we all accept there are jobs for assistants, nurses and doctors... in principle you could equally say that everyone in a hospital should be a doctor but we generally accept the basic tasks can be done by those without a MB ChB.

Nasqueron

boingy said:

Nasqueron said:

The first level staff who investigate complaints are the adjudicators, they are fully qualified to handle complaints and indeed, something like 9/10 cases where someone refers their complaint to the ombudsman after an adjudicator has ruled, the ombudsman agrees with the adjudicator. You undoubtedly had a bad case, people make mistakes as we're all only human but yours is the 1/10 case where the ombudsman disagrees. The adjudicator is not there to put off complaints or deter anything

Except that's exactly what they tried to do and their job title is definitely Investigator. I have a whole bunch of correspondence from one of them. It's in their signature and they also refer to it in various places in the body (eg "As an Investigator and as noted above, my role is...")  I had to press to even find out whether I could insist it went to an Ombudsman.

I don't know whether your 9/10 :stat is accurate but you should be wondering how many upholdable complaints do not make it through to the proper Ombudsman because the investigator succeeds in deterring the complainant. 

Given the 90% uphold rate of first line investigations that go to second line (for want of better terms), it's almost certainly going to be identical if they were passed on.

There is no conspiracy about first line trying to stop you referring things to the second which makes no sense as the complaint report you get tells you that you can do this. You were one of the 10% where they feel the first line got it wrong. 90% of decisions made by first line are in line with what the second line believes which makes sense as that would be your career path in the organisation and constantly getting decisions wrong would result in either retraining or unemployment.

As to my accuracy, why would I lie? The data is freely available

A request under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that in 2014/15 and 2015/16, 8.8 per cent and 12.7 per cent of decisions respectively involved an ombudsman making a different decision to an adjudicator.
In those two years there were 74,869 occasions when an ombudsman made a final decision, reviewing an adjudicator’s provisional decision.
All but 7,975 of those cases saw the ombudsman back the original decision reached by the adjudicator.
This means that cumulatively over the two years, 90 per cent of adjudicator decisions were upheld by an ombudsman.

https://www.ftadviser.com/2016/08/19/regulation/regulators/ombudsmen-back-adjudicators-in-of-cases-qcWI4lZz0a451Ay9GzoyHI/article.html

Moreover, in a more recent one, just 4.7% were (2020 and 2021 figures)

https://www.ftadviser.com/fos/2023/07/07/one-in-10-investigator-decisions-on-ppi-overturned-by-ombudsman/

Section62

DullGreyGuy said:

Ergates said:

boingy said:

No, I'm not. The "investigator" told me he saw no merit in my complaint and said there was no point escalating it to the ombudsman because they would say the same. I insisted that it be escalated and the ombudsman did not say the same. She agreed with me and upheld the complaint. It took three email exchanges with the "investigator" to get it escalated. (And you clearly haven't tried to get an appointment at my GP's surgery recently...  )

That doesn't suppport your claim that "The important thing to understand about the ombudsman is that those "investigators" are there to weed out the weaker complaints and to deter the stronger ones. " - which is suggesting that the purpose of the FOS is to prevent claims being upheld.

...

I mean in hospitals we all accept there are jobs for assistants, nurses and doctors... in principle you could equally say that everyone in a hospital should be a doctor but we generally accept the basic tasks can be done by those without a MB ChB.

boingy's point, and one I agree with because I've been in the same position, is that the investigator who has found in favour of the bank shouldn't tell the complainant that they can't escalate (or there is no point in escalating) the complaint for an ombudsman final decision, because it is the right of a complainant to do so.

Using your analogy in boingy's case, it is like a nurse telling a patient with a bad cough that it is just an infection which will clear up soon and they cannot see a doctor, only for that patient to subsequently see a doctor to be told the "infection" is actually terminal cancer.

There's nothing wrong with having different grades of people.  The problem comes where people at a lower grade are used as gatekeepers to block access to those at a higher grade, without necessarily having the skills, training, and experience to make that decision.

And it is even more of a problem when the individual at the lower grade adopts a "how dare you question my judgement" attitude and the reason for attempting to block access to someone at a higher level becomes personal (not wanting their decision exposed to scrutiny) rather than professional.

I'd also add that neither ombudsmen nor doctors are infallible.