Financial advisors wrong doing

Depuppups

Hi everyone,

I’d really appreciate some advice or opinions on what might be reasonable compensation in my situation.

I had a financial adviser who failed to act on my instructions for around three months. I’ve since discovered he has been convicted and sent to prison for serious child sex offences. During that time, I suffered a lot of emotional distress and physical symptoms from the stress of being ignored and misled.

The firm he worked for has offered me £250 as a “goodwill gesture,” but I’ve rejected it because I don’t feel it reflects the seriousness of the situation or the impact it’s had on me. My case has now been referred to the Financial Ombudsman.

The company has now asked to meet with me to discuss things further.

Has anyone been through something similar, or can anyone advise what might be considered fair compensation in a case like this?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or guidance.

Isthisforreal99

Generally speaking, in the UK you can't sue for stress caused etc and any payment you are offered will just be a goodwill offer as there is not really a legal basis to your claim.

Did you suffer any financial losses as a result of him failing to act on your instructions? If so, that is what you should focus on.

If there were no financial losses then you may squeeze a couple of hundred either through mediation or FOS but if you are expecting much more than that you will be disappointed.

Sometimes it's best to take what's offer and move on but only you can decide what's best for you.

FrugaiMacDugal

In what way did they not follow your instructions?

Did you suffer a financial loss?

You are on the Employment, jobseeking & training board, was it to do with your job?

I've asked for it to be moved.

Grumpy_chap

Depuppups said:

Hi everyone,

I’d really appreciate some advice or opinions on what might be reasonable compensation in my situation.

I had a financial adviser who failed to act on my instructions for around three months. I’ve since discovered he has been convicted and sent to prison for serious child sex offences. During that time, I suffered a lot of emotional distress and physical symptoms from the stress of being ignored and misled.

The firm he worked for has offered me £250 as a “goodwill gesture,” but I’ve rejected it because I don’t feel it reflects the seriousness of the situation or the impact it’s had on me. My case has now been referred to the Financial Ombudsman.

The company has now asked to meet with me to discuss things further.

Has anyone been through something similar, or can anyone advise what might be considered fair compensation in a case like this?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or guidance.

I assume that the Advisor's conviction is an irrelevance in terms of the service you received and does not directly impact you.  At most, it might have distracted the Advisor from doing what you requested.

In terms of your possible compensation, you need to consider what losses you have suffered as a consequence.  That needs to consider typical timelines for processing the requests that you made.

For example:
You asked the Advisor to invest £100k in a certain investment fund in first week August.
It was reasonable for that to be processed within the month, so invested in the funds by end of August.
Had that happened as expected, the funds would have increased in value (based on actual performance) by 2% so would now have a value of £102k.
Your loss is, therefore, £2k.

In considering such an assessment, you need to have in mind that the reasonable time to invest funds can extend, for example extra checks for KYC and AML checks.
In addition, it is possible that the funds would have fallen by the £2k value rather than grown over the period.  If that is the case, would you accept suffering the loss as an appropriate level of compensation?

What did you ask the Advisor to do?  When?
When did they actually do it?
How were you misled and ignored?
What emotional distress and physical symptoms from the stress did you suffer?
Did you see a Dr about these symptoms?
Did you suffer time off work as a result?  (If that meant lossed pay, that might mean a further calculation for compensation is possible.)

Overall, I suspect you are not able to make a strong case for compensation so the £250 goodwill gesture is likely as good as it gets.
If the business ultimately did what they were asked to do, being slow in their administration is towards annoyance and frustration rather than actual failure to perform.

Think yourself lucky that neither you or your children became caught up in the vile actions of the individual concerned.  Those children seem to be the real victims in all of this.  The impact those actions had on the Advisor's work performance is collateral damage.

PS - I think this is in the incorrect thread.  Possibly "savings & investments" would be better?