FINANCIAL OMBUDSMAN SERVICE - FOB

The FSB is a first port of call in seeking to resolve contractual or service disputes with banks and building societies

 

 

The United Kingdom's Financial Ombudsman Service is an ombudsman established in 2001 as a result of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 to help settle disputes between consumers and UK-based businesses providing financial services, such as banks, building societies, insurance companies, investment firms, financial advisers and finance companies.

 

The Financial Ombudsman Service publishes the proportion of complaints it upholds in favour of consumers. Across all complaints in 2013/2014 the ombudsman found 58% in favour of consumers.

The ombudsman was set up by parliament to be an impartial and independent body. Its decisions can be criticised by the side that loses - and where the outcome does not reflect actual losses, there is nothing to stop the aggrieved party from seeking more appropriate levels of compensation, or other remedy vi the courts. Useful caselaw for those unhappy with due consideration for loss of opportunity include:

 

MIDLAND BANK TRUST CO LTD v HETT, STUBBS and KEMP (a firm) [1979] Ch 384 - Cause in action for negligence which is not statute barred - breach of contract is an omission which continues ....

 

CHAPLAN v HICKS [1910] 2 KB 486 - The Court awarded damages for the loss of opportunity to be auditioned for a part in a show offered as part of a prize competition.

 

SIMPSON v LONDON and NORTH WESTERN RLY Co. (1876) 1 QBD 274 - The complainant recovered damages for loss of custom when the defendant failed to deliver samples in time for a show, even though no precise assessment of loss was possible.

Independent commentators acknowledge that the ombudsman service is a valuable free service for consumers - although those who feel they have "lost" a complaint might understandably feel let down and want to question the ombudsman's impartiality.

 

Some consumers have questioned the amount of redress awarded by the ombudsman while many businesses expect the ombudsman to apply the compensation cap rigidly and lobbied against the increase (in January 2012) from £100,000 to £150,000 in the maximum compensation the ombudsman can tell a business to pay.

Various websites have been set up to complain about the Financial Ombudsman's partiality - usually by people who disagree with particular ombudsman decisions. As we have shown above, there is caselaw that would allow a complainant to seek additional compensation in appropriate cases. Be careful though, that litigation would not cost more than the sums that might be recoverable - and that the Ombudsman has erred in favour of the bank, etc.

 

Inevitably, cosy relationships will be developed as the FSB takes an easy path to resolution. Not only that, from our experience, FSB operatives are generally not lawyers, but ex bankers that may have been tainted by banking practices that are common in banking circles, but that are still unlawful - as cases such as the LIBOR scandal and Robert Diamond, illustrate.

 

 

PRESSURES LEADING TO CUT CORNERS

 

You are advised not to contact the FOB on the telephone. They will do their level best to confuse you and then use that confusion to wipe the complaint from their books. Like any government organisation they have targets and will take shortcuts to reduce their caseload.

 

Your complaint would receive better attention if it is set out in writing. Ask the FOB what they require upfront in order for them to consider your complaint, We know of examples where the FOB have said that had all that they needed to consider a complaint, but that when an officer was appointed to look at the complaint, the goalposts were moved. The objective of these tactics is to disadvantage the complainant - often asking a person or organisation for costly research that defeats to purpose of the FOB as a fair way of dealing with complaints - you may as well litigate if you are going to have to jump through umpteen hurdles, as the FOB sift cases to lighten their workload.

 

 

LEGAL AID 

 

Ultimately, both the FOB and the financial institution are answerable  to the Courts. That is what the Courts are for. The bad news is that with our current austerity measures, from years of government overspending and huge national debt, legal aid that would normally have been available to those who cannot afford a solicitor, has been reduced to only those cases where no litigation risk is involved. You can thank not only David Cameron for that, but also Tony Blair and a whole cavalcade of politicians who should have known better than to put their own interests before those of the common man. 

 

 

 

 

FOB CONTACTS

 

Please direct your queries to:

 

The Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London E14 9SR

Email: complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk

Telephone:

020 7964 1000 (switchboard)
+44 20 7964 1000 (for calls from outside the UK)
020 7964 1001 (main fax)

 

 

BANKING ERRORS FROM MISCOMMUNICATIONS ETC

 

Banks sometimes seek to close certain types of accounts, or accounts that are not active. The problem with this is that accounts such as this are frequently used by clubs or not for profit organisations. In closing such accounts banks will cost not for profit organisations significant sums in seeking to re-open, or open replacement accounts.

 

Regardless of the duty of care that banks owe to its customers, they still proceed to close these accounts, despite the deemed "breach of contract" and the fact that monies in those accounts may then be absorbed by the Bank, causing the account holder loss. Loss is not only the loss of the monies that have been taken from the account holder, but also the expense of having to deal with such institutional maladministration.

 

Banks are though systematic, always seeking to improve returns and cut costs, even where corporate responsibility demands equal care to not for profits, as to trading corporations.

 

 

Financial Ombudsman Service                                                                               Recorded Post

Exchange Tower

London, E14 9SR

                                                                                                                                    2 March 2015 

 

Dear Sir or Madam:

 

 

BARCLAYS BANK - WRONGFUL ACCOUNT CLOSURE

We (collectively) are the trustees of a historic building that we are doing our best to raise money to restore. One of our trustees had an account that we planned to use to accept monies from our fund raising projects, one of which is a publication that we want to release as an e-book.

 

The account is/was: “Generating Works Restoration Association,” account number 80170925. The sort code is/was 20-27-92. This is in connection with an early electricity generating building dating from 1909.

 

Barclays bank knew of our intentions for this account, but one day they wrote to us telling us they would close the account unless they heard from us to keep the account open. We duly wrote to Barclays Bank by recorded delivery and well within their stated timeframe, explaining why we needed the account and to please keep it open.

 

Despite this, Barclays closed the account. Please see copies of our letters dated the 13th of December 2013 and 4th of December 2014. Please also see copy of Barclay’s reply to us dated the 11th of December 2014.

 

In Barclays’ most recent letter they admit closing the account in error and offer us £126 in compensation. They go on to say that we should attend one of their branches to fill in a “Re-Open Closed Account Form”. We knew this was poor advice from previous efforts along those lines but felt obliged to give it another go. Thinking that perhaps they’d made special arrangements.

 

Thus, on the 26th of February 2015 one of our trustees took time out again to attempt to re-open the account, at the Eastbourne branch. He was kept waiting for over 30 minutes and finally when he was seen, the lady trying to sort this out (Debbie Hayes) was also bounced from pillar to post on the telephone, finally coming to the conclusion that it was not possible to re-open the closed account, as per the advice in their letter of the 11th of December 2014. Full marks though to Ms Hayes for trying.

 

As before, Barclays wanted us to open a different type of account, being much more convoluted to do so and not the same service in any event. We were very happy with the account we enjoyed previously for many years, we might add without hiccup.

 

Now we have a cheque from Barclays for £126 that we cannot cash, because we cannot re-open our original account. The fact is though that the bank contracted with us to provide a service and breached their own terms and conditions. This has caused us loss in the form of the time of our trustees (take time out from work) in having to discuss this and arrange for replies, etc, and has also caused us to keep on hold the release of the publication we advised the bank of, pending the re-opening of our account. Thinking that it would speed things along, we never asked for consequential losses at that time, as you will see.

 

We have come to you with this complaint well within the six months time limit, so could we please ask you to try to resolve this matter for us, without costing any of our trustees more time than is absolutely necessary to restore our original account. We are sure that in the digital age, that any well-organised bank can sort this from head office within minutes of opening their system. We imagine, just as easily as they closed the account.

 

Whereas, at the moment they seem determined to put us to additional trouble and to a very different type of account, when the mistake is theirs, not ours.

 

If for any reason our account still cannot be restored, could we then ask you to look at the issue of consequential loss, something that the bank have so far not been asked to consider.

 

We hope that with the Ombudsman looking into this matter that it might finally reach a satisfactory conclusion.

 

Thanking you in anticipation.

 

 

Yours faithfully,

 

 

 

for Lime Park Heritage Trust

 

 

 

 

 

 

LINKS & REFERENCE

 

Financial Ombudsman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Ombudsman_Service

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Ombudsman_Service

BBC News business Barclays LIBOR rate fixing scandal fines

New York Times 2013 May 5 magazine Robert Diamonds next life

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/magazine/robert-diamonds-next-life.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18671255

 


 

 

MONEY FINDER

 

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WOOLWICH

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