Financial ombudsman comes under fire as insider reveals litany of bad practices

[AuntieP]

I see mention in the forum of fos interest rate calculations etc. Basically fos often do not check firms calculations properly, if at all, especially if the firm has made an offer. See below my evidence to the Hunt Review of the fos.

"It is FOS policy that firms which submit offers of compensation are treated differently from those which do not make an offer. Few ordinary people will be able to understand this. This policy is not made known to claimants so far as I know, yet the professional claims managers at the firms are well aware of it. All the firms must know that if they submit an offer there is a good chance that the FOS will not check the calculations, nor will the offer be compared with the FOS in-house guidelines. In the light of this, a good tactical move would be to submit a low offer and hope the FOS lets it though without checking.
A good example of the use of this policy by a firm is in the case of my Aunt. The firm proposed a reasonable offer and backed it up with its own calculations. FOS said fine, it looks reasonable, we don't need to check it. In fact the interest rate used was not reasonable ( a higher rate was available anywhere and it was 1% below the FOS recommended figure) and a tax error was not noticed resulting in an underpayment of £8000. But because the offer met the FOS's requirements to be allowed though without checking, it got though the net.

I know this is definite FOS policy, I have it in writing from the Service Review Team and the Independent Assessor. It is a deeply flawed policy, unfair to claimants and biased in favour of firms. FOS should review this policy."

To read more and see what really happens when you go to the FOS please see my full evidence to the Hunt Review at
www.financial-ombudsman-problems.co.uk

[charley2212]

good post auntie , the fos are a total waste of time , they pay lip service to the media with their results tables etc
i have a few cases with em at the mo , bc cap 1 and HSBC only received responses ref my hsbc claim and then they have totally confused the situation by splitting the claim up just to confuse even more , and so far they agree with hsbc , after 23 yrs of being with them they have managed to investigate in five mins .

[tifo]

i can vouch for the fos's bad decisions, i've been a victim of theirs for many claims and have lost thousands as a result of their 'set in stone' biased decisions, to which the banks always refer to.

[fergal71]

how do I launch an investigation by independant assesor into a claim that has taken nearly 3 years???

[Surfer01]

We had a complaint against Firstplus and we were intially offered £100 compensation for harassment for a arrears which we did not have. Firstplus kindly or by accident sent me the letter that had been sent to Firstplus and the adjudicator clearly sided with Firstplus. We refused the £100 and advised that we wanted the issue escalated to an Ombudsman at which point we were contacted by the adjudicator adn a new offer of £300 was presented. We then accepted this.
The point being is that if we had not objected fos would have closed the case in favour of Firstplus! This was also pointed out to the adjudicator.

[patrickq1]

my three complaints with fos go back as far as 2006 and nothing has happened cept to say they have lost some very important documents ? so i am about to esculate my complaint you will get the omsbudsman address of the fos website..
patrickq1

[tifo]

Originally Posted by fergal71

how do I launch an investigation by independant assesor into a claim that has taken nearly 3 years???

You need to escalate the case to the Service Review Team and then the Independant Assessor (who isn't really that independant).

But either cannot change the Adjudicator/Ombudsman decision but only look at the service you have received, even if you say the service was biased etc.

[patrickq1]

i truthfully cant see the point in complaining to the fos the only complaint that needs be made is to some other authority that the fos are unfit for purpose ..i wonder if trading standards would look at it lol or even the FSA o FSA wont as they only deal with Major complaints it helps them waste goverment money our taxes...so newspapers are the only ones this way the fos may be forced to act in a fit and proper manner

[charley2212]

Originally Posted by patrickq1

i truthfully cant see the point in complaining to the fos the only complaint that needs be made is to some other authority that the fos are unfit for purpose ..i wonder if trading standards would look at it lol or even the FSA o FSA wont as they only deal with Major complaints it helps them waste goverment money our taxes...so newspapers are the only ones this way the fos may be forced to act in a fit and proper manner

yes i agree patricq1 , would be nice to do a petition and send or present this to them CAG oscar

[rdm2006]

Have I read somewhere that fos is now under the umbrella of the FSA and there were talks of that being reversed FSA under fos (God forbid that one)

[patrickq1]

yes i think that would be a good idea if CAG could produce an ugly type oscar and presented it to the national television stations and say it is the OSCAR FOR THE WORST GOVERMENT RUN ORGANISATION AND WASTED TAXPAYERS MONEY

[charley2212]

Originally Posted by patrickq1

yes i think that would be a good idea if CAG could produce an ugly type oscar and presented it to the national television stations and say it is the OSCAR FOR THE WORST GOVERMENT RUN ORGANISATION AND WASTED TAXPAYERS MONEY

HA NOMINATION SECONDED

[sweetjane]

Complain to your MP - whatever party. In fact tell all the candidates in your area that the fos is not fit for purpose and what do they intend to do about it when/if they get into power. Go and see your MP now with details of your particular case. Mine is monitoring correspondence with the fos and might be asking questions in the House. The Treasury Committee are also very aware of the lack of consumer power in financial services and so is the cross-party Commission for the Future of Banking organized by Which? with David Davis, John McFall & Vince Cable all involved. It is time for us consumers to have more say - on boards of banks, mutuals, pension companies and regulators and at the Ombudsman Service. Remember The Government is Our Government - we get what we vote for in majority and we have the power to make it do our bidding. If you're unhappy with your MP, get involved in politics.

[lenamartell]

Crickey... We are three years into our complaint... Got me worried now...

[reallymadwoman]

And I thought 2 years was bad - for a 'priority case'.

[tifo]

i had a complaint settled at the beginning of March which i passed to the fos in June 2007 .... that's 2 years and 9 months on a PPI case.

Another one went from September 2007 to December 2009, that's 2 years and 3 months, again for a PPI case.

Most of my PPI cases have taken around 2 years and charges cases taken around 12 - 18 months.

That's why i'm not too keen on passing a PPI case to the fos again.

Then the banks say 'you're out of the claim time due to the Limitation Act', as i'm now getting. What do the fos say? "Yes, we agree, of there are no charges in the past 6 years there's nothing to be refunded". But the banks wasted 3 years .....

[tifo]

on a few PPI cases i've had a response from the bank:

"as a gesture of goodwill we will uphold your complaint, please find below details of the payment due" then "there are no PPI charges to your account in the past 6 years so no payment is due to you".

at the fos they offered around £450 but wanted to pay towards a settled account at a DCA, meaning i have paid the DCA once and would be paying them again from the bank. fos agreed with this so i didn't accept the settlements, now banks say 'out of claim time'.

what can i do?

[platinum]

A few points.

First, the fos is not funded by the Taxpayers but by financial institutions
(so I suppose we are all funding the levies and fees charged to Lloyds TSB, HBOS and Northern Rock).

Second a lot of financial institutions do not like fos either. They agree it is not fit for purpose.

This is particularly true of IFAs. They are generally far more highly qualified than adjudicators - many of whom have only basic qualifications and are unable to understand what they are looking at.

In banking, there are now adjudicators who have no relevant qualifications at all - but then neither does the new Chief Ombudsman!

Most adjudicators are now contractors who have their own limited companies and are paid a fee per case - so taking an easy route is a clear temptation and it is generally easy to uphold what you do not understand.

The problem is not entirely the fault of fos - the workload has expanded to the extent that they cannot cope.

For those being harrassed by DCAs, I recommend you are very familiar with the OFT guidance. If any part of it is breached (including multiple phone calls) then challenge the adjudicator by asking them why they disagree with the OFT on any point they have not upheld on.

It will make life more difficult for them.

And do go to an Ombudsman if they don't come up with a satisfactory answer.

[cavecash]

If you don't like the fos then it's prob best to go straight to court. fos is a free alternative, if your not happy with their decision you can still go to court after. Your not paying them so the most your losing is a few quid in postage. With regards to funding, it's either the industry that funds them or you, which would you prefer?

[reallymadwoman]

Originally Posted by cavecash

If you don't like the fos then it's prob best to go straight to court. fos is a free alternative, if your not happy with their decision you can still go to court after. Your not paying them so the most your losing is a few quid in postage. With regards to funding, it's either the industry that funds them or you, which would you prefer?

Unless they take so long to fail to deal with your complaint that any possible court claim is then out of time.