Financial Ombudsman-Wow!

3offTheTee

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Anybody had any dealings with them? Found them totally incompetent and if they were in Industry doubt they would survive. Raised a query/ dispute in June 2020. They are unable to give me a starting date nor how many are before me.

88% of people have given them the lowest rating on Trust Pilot which possibly makes Ryanair look great!
 
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Oh great. I've opened a ticket with them regarding the company I leased my car with. Took ages to get a response and that only asked for some basic details. They said it will be several weeks before they can look at it, guess I shouldn't hold my breath.
 

Maninblack4612

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An 87 year old friend of my wife's was defrauded out of £15,000 in an online bank fraud. Santander washed their hands of the matter & refused to compensate her. On her behalf, I submitted a case to the Financial Ombudsman. They couldn't have been more helpful & pleasant to deal with. After an admittedly long time they ordered Santander to refund her in full & she now has all of her money back. You have to be patient but my experience is that they are firmly on the customer's side.
 

DanFST

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An 87 year old friend of my wife's was defrauded out of £15,000 in an online bank fraud. Santander washed their hands of the matter & refused to compensate her. On her behalf, I submitted a case to the Financial Ombudsman. They couldn't have been more helpful & pleasant to deal with. After an admittedly long time they ordered Santander to refund her in full & she now has all of her money back. You have to be patient but my experience is that they are firmly on the customer's side.


Do you have any more details of the scam? Might help others.

I'm very surprised they got her money back!
 

Maninblack4612

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Do you have any more details of the scam? Might help others.

I'm very surprised they got her money back!

It was the one where the internet provider rings up & says she's due a £150 refund. Asked her to download a file & input £150. Then told her she'd put in £15,000 & employee would lose his job if she didn't pay it back. Shouted & harassed & had her petrified. Ombudsman ruled that in spite of her obvious negligence she was entitled to a refund because she was vulnerable. Santander shot themselves in the foot, really, because, after it happened, they put her on their "customer at risk" register. I did some research & there is apparently a fund, contributed to by all the big banks, from which cases like this are refunded. I was a bit surprised myself that she got it all back when the bank had done nothing but carry out her instructions but it was worth the effort and likely cost Santander nothing.
 

jim8flog

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My brother was a broker

He had a client complain to the previous Authority.

After investigation he was told he had mis-sold a product to the client the ruling being that he should have sold them another particular product. The product they were saying he should have sold the client did not exist when he made the initial sale.
 

Hobbit

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Used them twice. Took quite a while due to demand but they were excellent. Also used ofgen for a dispute. The result was in our favour but the power company ‘found’ other charges that hadn’t been originally applied that meant we still owed £90 after receiving £1200. They’re still waiting 3 years later.
 

GreiginFife

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My brother was a broker

He had a client complain to the previous Authority.

After investigation he was told he had mis-sold a product to the client the ruling being that he should have sold them another particular product. The product they were saying he should have sold the client did not exist when he made the initial sale.

Was this pre 2000? Do you mean the FCA rather than FOS? (FCA replaced FSA around 2012).

Different body, different remit.
 

GreiginFife

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Do you have any more details of the scam? Might help others.

I'm very surprised they got her money back!
It was the one where the internet provider rings up & says she's due a £150 refund. Asked her to download a file & input £150. Then told her she'd put in £15,000 & employee would lose his job if she didn't pay it back. Shouted & harassed & had her petrified. Ombudsman ruled that in spite of her obvious negligence she was entitled to a refund because she was vulnerable. Santander shot themselves in the foot, really, because, after it happened, they put her on their "customer at risk" register. I did some research & there is apparently a fund, contributed to by all the big banks, from which cases like this are refunded. I was a bit surprised myself that she got it all back when the bank had done nothing but carry out her instructions but it was worth the effort and likely cost Santander nothing.

There's a few things at play here. For the bank to be forced to refund (or of their own accord) there needs to be proof that they failed in their duty to protect the interests of the customer. In this case Santander clearly felt they had done all they could do and were, as you say, carrying out the instructions.

But, and it's a big but, there is a requirement on all banks to responsibly monitor transactions and, at minimum, alert where there are abnormal transactions. So, unless the old dear was in the habit of making >£5k cash transactions, at the very minimal the AML processes should have picked this up.

I have no doubt that FOS would be saying the Santander than they could highlight at least 2 failures on the bank's part to protect the customer. And that's without the customer even being on a "vulnerable customer" marker.

Their clear failure here was on the KYC (Know Your Customer) FCA pillar, IMO .
 

Tashyboy

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Me and Missis T went through the PPI claim against the now defunct Bradford and Bingley. We honestly did not know we had been “ sold “ It. Anyway we was turned down. We appealed and told them that we were taking the case further. Strangely enough a week or two later, Bradford and Bingley said they had had a rethink and found in our favour. And sent a cheque. However the FSA ( I think) who we had spoken to rang us a couple of days later and said that Bradford had come to the correct decision. I had great delight in telling them that B and B had changed there mind and that the FSA were bloody useless. The impression from the first moment of speaking to them left me with the impression they were not interested.
 

PhilTheFragger

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My experience of them is poor

We had a BTL lifetime tracker mortgage with West Brom Building Society

They arbitrarily decided to change the tracker rate / Base for “professional Landlords”

Financial Ombudsman ruled they were within their rights to do so.

Went to court a year later, Judge ruled they were wrong, excess interest paid back, absolutely no thanks to the Ombudsman
 

4LEX

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I had a dealing with them over a Vodafone phone contract years ago. I basically had signal less than 30% of the time, so I cancelled. Vodafone tried to get me to pay up for the entire length of the contract which was over two grand. I refused and went to the Ombudsman. They decided it should be 50/50 surprise surprise. I refused to pay a penny and said see me in court to Vodafone. Never heard from them again.
 
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