Do you trust Financial Ombudsman?

peterbaker · 30 August 2018 at 2:26PM

Those tending to blindness as those who will not see always have the option of following dunstonh's advice.

There is no conspiracy theory, simply the tips of sundry but relevant icebergs lurking within the public domain just waiting to have more light shed on them by pointers like THIS.

JuicyJesus · 30 August 2018 at 2:36PM

Yes yes the FCA are space lizards, all you need to do is put on your tin-foil hat to stop THEM from interfering with your brain waves and BLOCKING YOU FROM SEEING THE TRUTH.

peterbaker · 30 August 2018 at 2:53PM

Oh dear - I see once more we need to remind that the thread is about whether the Financial Ombudsman Service can be trusted.

Freedom of Information requests referenced at whatdotheyknow.com are a good place to research facts as released upon statutory request by FOS themselves

On that question of trust, there are good FOI questions answered that help MSE readers form a judgement about whether decisions made by FOS are correct (trustworthy). One such is this very recent one:
“I would be grateful if you could advise of the number of complaints you have received where the initial decision as arrived at by a case investigator has, on appeal, been overturned by an actual ombudsman. Please supply this information for the last twelve months.”

And in direct contrast, the response to this more barbed and therefore unsuccessful request is a beauty to behold :rotfl:

JuicyJesus · 30 August 2018 at 3:11PM

Wow so ombudsmen can and do overturn complaints as is the point of them being a final stage of the FOS process to ensure that consumers (and businesses!) have a further point of appeal if they feel an adjudicator has got it seriously wrong?

Sod FSMA; THIS changes everything.

To take a cue from eskbanker, "even if that is true, so what?" If the point is that sometimes adjudicators put out weird decisions, then that's rather obvious. That's why consumers (and businesses) have that further right of appeal. A right of appeal which is basically as transparent as is possible given every single ombudsman's decision is published, going back about five years now.

Also, FOS are well within their rights to refuse to deal with FOI requests that are obviously vexatious - as with every public body. As the person writing that "barbed" one has made no fewer than TWENTY FOI requests to FOS, including ones on such amazingly important subjects as "does someone have to sign their name with a pen to accept an adjudicator's view", and appears to be doing so for the sake of £16 and in a scattergun way, I can't say I blame them.

peterbaker · 30 August 2018 at 3:39PM

I said it was a beauty - seems someone liked it :rotfl:

Here's another - some employees at FOS just can't be trusted even with the basics it seems We do hope it's not a cultural habit picked up while they were there

JuicyJesus · 30 August 2018 at 3:50PM

Honestly, what the f**k does "how much debt has been left unpaid by people who have left the organisation year on year for the past three years" have to do with anything?

Once again: "even if that is true, so what?"

eskbanker · 30 August 2018 at 4:52PM

peterbaker wrote: »

On that question of trust, there are good FOI questions answered that help MSE readers form a judgement about whether decisions made by FOS are correct (trustworthy). One such is this very recent one:
“I would be grateful if you could advise of the number of complaints you have received where the initial decision as arrived at by a case investigator has, on appeal, been overturned by an actual ombudsman. Please supply this information for the last twelve months.”

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Wow so ombudsmen can and do overturn complaints as is the point of them being a final stage of the FOS process to ensure that consumers (and businesses!) have a further point of appeal if they feel an adjudicator has got it seriously wrong?

Sod FSMA; THIS changes everything.

To take a cue from eskbanker, "even if that is true, so what?" If the point is that sometimes adjudicators put out weird decisions, then that's rather obvious. That's why consumers (and businesses) have that further right of appeal. A right of appeal which is basically as transparent as is possible given every single ombudsman's decision is published, going back about five years now.

Unless I'm misinterpreting that FOI request about decisions being overturned, this happens in about 21% of the cases escalated to ombudsmen, or to put it another way, 79% aren't changed.

This does of course beg the question of what the blinkered conspiracy theorist would consider an appropriate overturn percentage to be in such circumstances - obviously a very low figure would be construed as the appeal process being a sham and a charade, cosily rubber-stamping decisions rather than reviewing them critically and objectively

A glance at the equivalent figures at the top end of the judiciary shows that appeals allowed versus dismissed break down approximately 50/50 - no doubt to some post-truthers that signifies incompetent judges and an untrustworthy/corrupt/flawed/etc system rather than genuine and legitimate differences of opinion and interpretation....

peterbaker · 30 August 2018 at 5:04PM

I don’t think there are any 19 year old adjudicators in the judiciary, especially in the higher courts, and the level of legal professionalism practised might be rather different to that on display at FOS, so the comparison doesn’t work too well for me

eskbanker · 30 August 2018 at 5:17PM

peterbaker wrote: »

I don’t think there are any 19 year old adjudicators in the judiciary, especially in the higher courts, and the level of legal professionalism practised might be rather different to that on display at FOS, so the comparison doesn’t work too well for me

If you're going to equate age with competence, what do you feel would be a realistic minimum age for an FOS adjudicator?

Perhaps you, or one of your ilk, would like to submit a frivolous FOI request asking for percentage of decisions overturned correlated by age of adjudicator? That's not a serious suggestion, by the way....

And back to my question, what percentage of decisions overturned on appeal would you believe to be appropriate, and on what basis?

masonic · 30 August 2018 at 6:48PM

JuicyJesus wrote: »

Look, I'm not reading all of that. Make your point in a more succinct way or sod off to be honest. I'm not reading through twelve paragraphs of green ink about how FOS are intergalactic space lizards when I managed to summarise most of your posts on this thread in four bullet points.

There's no point in you trying to read it or comprehend it. Your mind has been atrophied by the fluoride the Government has put in your drinking water and you've been further pacified by chemtrails. It was all way too much for me too, especially after another thread in which Peter revealed to me that the Government had engaged in a surreptitious campaign in collusion with the banks to shift responsibility for bank fraud onto the vulnerable elderly to cause some of them to literally die of shock.

Join me in the bliss of ignorance, where this thread is just delightful and free of circumlocutions - well, except when a certain person insists on quoting in full some of the posts I wouldn't otherwise see.

Do you trust Financial Ombudsman?

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