Santander free forever bank account changes

eskbanker

singhini said:

eskbanker said:

singhini said:

Charging Santander (or any other institution) £650 is criminal!

What alternative FOS funding model would you propose?

Charge customers £9.99 per month
That's ALL customers not just business customers

Did you understand the question?

Nasqueron

singhini said:

boingy said:

amyfairweather said:

Also confirmed there, each complaint to the FOS costs Santander £650.

Only if you progress the complaint past the "triage" stage. In the first instance you'll probably get a response from an FOS underling saying that they don't think the complaint will be upheld and recommending that you don't proceed. So it's important to insist that it does proceed if you want it to reach a proper ombudsman.

Charging Santander (or any other institution) £650 is criminal!

Agreed however, the FOS are allowed to waive the charges on frivolous or vexatious complaints. Say you complain that a bank won't give you a loan because you can't afford it, bank rejects, customer goes to FOS, the FOS won't charge for this (at least they shouldn't) as it's not in their remit to force banks to lend money they feel someone can't repay.

singhini

eskbanker said:

singhini said:

eskbanker said:

singhini said:

Charging Santander (or any other institution) £650 is criminal!

What alternative FOS funding model would you propose?

Charge customers £9.99 per month
That's ALL customers not just business customers

Did you understand the question?

Yes (though my response was not a clear as it could be)
Did you figure out what i was suggesting?

singhini

Nasqueron said:

singhini said:

boingy said:

amyfairweather said:

Also confirmed there, each complaint to the FOS costs Santander £650.

Only if you progress the complaint past the "triage" stage. In the first instance you'll probably get a response from an FOS underling saying that they don't think the complaint will be upheld and recommending that you don't proceed. So it's important to insist that it does proceed if you want it to reach a proper ombudsman.

Charging Santander (or any other institution) £650 is criminal!

Agreed however, the FOS are allowed to waive the charges on frivolous or vexatious complaints. Say you complain that a bank won't give you a loan because you can't afford it, bank rejects, customer goes to FOS, the FOS won't charge for this (at least they shouldn't) as it's not in their remit to force banks to lend money they feel someone can't repay.

Would be interesting to know how often FOS waive the charges.

i wonder what people would think if they were charged the £650 instead of the bank in cases where FOS agreed with the banks (though no such system exists)

Section62

singhini said:

Nasqueron said:

singhini said:

boingy said:

amyfairweather said:

Also confirmed there, each complaint to the FOS costs Santander £650.

Only if you progress the complaint past the "triage" stage. In the first instance you'll probably get a response from an FOS underling saying that they don't think the complaint will be upheld and recommending that you don't proceed. So it's important to insist that it does proceed if you want it to reach a proper ombudsman.

Charging Santander (or any other institution) £650 is criminal!

Agreed however, the FOS are allowed to waive the charges on frivolous or vexatious complaints. Say you complain that a bank won't give you a loan because you can't afford it, bank rejects, customer goes to FOS, the FOS won't charge for this (at least they shouldn't) as it's not in their remit to force banks to lend money they feel someone can't repay.

Would be interesting to know how often FOS waive the charges.

i wonder what people would think if they were charged the £650 instead of the bank in cases where FOS agreed with the banks (though no such system exists)

We're straying off topic here. But to respond briefly....

If using the FOS cost the consumer £650 then some consumers whose complaints are currently dealt with by FOS would instead end up as MCOL or other court claims instead.  It would likely cost the banks more than £650 per case to deal with complaints via the court system vs FOS.

FOS is there as a low cost method of resolving disputes between customers and financial service providers, and also has the benefit of avoiding clogging up the court system with cases which are better dealt with through ADR.

If you want to encourage people to use ADR to resolve complaints through a low cost and quick process then you need to incentivise them to do so.... and the best incentive is to make the service free to the complainant.

Section62

Nasqueron said:

singhini said:

boingy said:

amyfairweather said:

Also confirmed there, each complaint to the FOS costs Santander £650.

Only if you progress the complaint past the "triage" stage. In the first instance you'll probably get a response from an FOS underling saying that they don't think the complaint will be upheld and recommending that you don't proceed. So it's important to insist that it does proceed if you want it to reach a proper ombudsman.

Charging Santander (or any other institution) £650 is criminal!

Agreed however, the FOS are allowed to waive the charges on frivolous or vexatious complaints. Say you complain that a bank won't give you a loan because you can't afford it, bank rejects, customer goes to FOS, the FOS won't charge for this (at least they shouldn't) as it's not in their remit to force banks to lend money they feel someone can't repay.

It isn't as straightforward as your example suggests though.

A refusal to give a loan (on the basis of affordability) might be due to error, incorrect information, or a policy/process which conflicts with FCA rules or the law.

So such a complaint isn't necessarily 'frivolous or vexatious', and FOS probably won't know whether it is or isn't until they have investigated the case.

eskbanker

singhini said:

eskbanker said:

singhini said:

eskbanker said:

singhini said:

Charging Santander (or any other institution) £650 is criminal!

What alternative FOS funding model would you propose?

Charge customers £9.99 per month
That's ALL customers not just business customers

Did you understand the question?

Yes (though my response was not a clear as it could be)
Did you figure out what i was suggesting?

No, it seemed clear that the post before yours was tongue in cheek but hard to tell if yours was intended as a joke or serious....

Nasqueron

Section62 said:

Nasqueron said:

singhini said:

boingy said:

amyfairweather said:

Also confirmed there, each complaint to the FOS costs Santander £650.

Only if you progress the complaint past the "triage" stage. In the first instance you'll probably get a response from an FOS underling saying that they don't think the complaint will be upheld and recommending that you don't proceed. So it's important to insist that it does proceed if you want it to reach a proper ombudsman.

Charging Santander (or any other institution) £650 is criminal!

Agreed however, the FOS are allowed to waive the charges on frivolous or vexatious complaints. Say you complain that a bank won't give you a loan because you can't afford it, bank rejects, customer goes to FOS, the FOS won't charge for this (at least they shouldn't) as it's not in their remit to force banks to lend money they feel someone can't repay.

It isn't as straightforward as your example suggests though.

A refusal to give a loan (on the basis of affordability) might be due to error, incorrect information, or a policy/process which conflicts with FCA rules or the law.

So such a complaint isn't necessarily 'frivolous or vexatious', and FOS probably won't know whether it is or isn't until they have investigated the case.

We could pick other examples and the FOS still won't force a lender to give a loan to someone they don't want to

Section62

Nasqueron said:

Section62 said:

Nasqueron said:

singhini said:

boingy said:

amyfairweather said:

Also confirmed there, each complaint to the FOS costs Santander £650.

Only if you progress the complaint past the "triage" stage. In the first instance you'll probably get a response from an FOS underling saying that they don't think the complaint will be upheld and recommending that you don't proceed. So it's important to insist that it does proceed if you want it to reach a proper ombudsman.

Charging Santander (or any other institution) £650 is criminal!

Agreed however, the FOS are allowed to waive the charges on frivolous or vexatious complaints. Say you complain that a bank won't give you a loan because you can't afford it, bank rejects, customer goes to FOS, the FOS won't charge for this (at least they shouldn't) as it's not in their remit to force banks to lend money they feel someone can't repay.

It isn't as straightforward as your example suggests though.

A refusal to give a loan (on the basis of affordability) might be due to error, incorrect information, or a policy/process which conflicts with FCA rules or the law.

So such a complaint isn't necessarily 'frivolous or vexatious', and FOS probably won't know whether it is or isn't until they have investigated the case.

We could pick other examples and the FOS still won't force a lender to give a loan to someone they don't want to

Sure, but the point was that a bank not giving a loan "because [the complainant] can't afford it" doesn't mean a complaint about it is necessarily 'frivolous or vexatious'. (and thus legitimately incurs a full FOS case charge)

A better example of a frivolous complaint might be that 'Santander use red for their branding and the complaining customer is an Everton fan'.

FOS also have options other than "forc[ing] a lender to give a loan to someone they don't want to".

TheBanker

Section62 said:

singhini said:

boingy said:

amyfairweather said:

Also confirmed there, each complaint to the FOS costs Santander £650.

Only if you progress the complaint past the "triage" stage. In the first instance you'll probably get a response from an FOS underling saying that they don't think the complaint will be upheld and recommending that you don't proceed. So it's important to insist that it does proceed if you want it to reach a proper ombudsman.

Charging Santander (or any other institution) £650 is criminal!

As a shareholder I agree with the sentiment.

But as someone who thinks banks should treat people fairly, if the argument is that Santander need to charge £9.99 per month to cover their costs when they previously promised to provide the service for free 'forever', then it would be a tad hypocritical of Santander to have a moan about FOS charging (a maximum of) £650 to cover their costs.  Business is business.

And as said on this thread about the affected customers, if Santander don't like the FOS charges they could* take their business elsewhere.

(*Ok, a bit more involved than switching bank, but still theoretically possible)

No they can't. The FCA's Dispute Handling (DISP) rulebook makes this perfectly clear.