Finance Trials – Follow Up
Posted: Tue 22 August, 2023 Filed under: Customer Services, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances 3 Comments »Following on from my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman about [Company A]’s fuckery, I got a response this morning from them.
Well, I say a response. More of an acknowledgement. With this in it…
We try to resolve complaints as quickly as we can. But there’s currently a very high demand for our service – so it might take around four months before a case handler gets in touch with you and starts looking into your complaint.
(That’s their emphasis on the timescale, not mine)
So on current evidence I’ll be lucky to hear anything at all before 2024…
I think that people are much less likely to complain about this sort of thing than they were maybe 5 years ago, so that says something, doesn’t it? Most will whine on social media but won’t be bothered to fill in the forms for an Ombudsman.
No such thing as an ‘Ombudmsan’ being involved either, more a kid with 4 GCSEs who can’t get a job elsewhere. “Case handler” indeed.
Only good thing is that every complaint costs a company (I don’t think the amounts are public record though?) and wil have to be reported to shareholders (in some form).
Good luck.
I suspect that while there are probably fewer complaints, there are also far fewer people to handle them. (And/or that most of the complaints that are made are much larger and more complex, which take longer to look into)
And yes, I don’t know how much is automatically charged to a complained-about company, but I’m fairly sure it’s not insignificant!
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/files/1874/QG1.pdf
“All businesses are entitled to a number of
“free” cases. We don’t currently charge a
case fee for the first 25 cases in a year. But
we will charge £550 for the 26th and each
subsequent case.”
But… read down a bit…
I now I know why big firms don’t give a shit any more. They now pay a fixed fee which covers all complaints made against them.