Today, I had a response from The financial Ombudsman service in relation to a catalog of errors made by a bank when I remortgaged. These errors comprised - giving changing advice constantly as one person at the bank would say one thing and another would say different, demanding a valuation ( at a sum of nearly £300) when it had been agreed one was not required, stringing out the remortgage process for several months, then when I did sign the papers for the agreed amount., it appeared that the bank had "forgot " to inform me that they had made a mistake and were only prepared to offer 2/3 rds of the amount that had been agreed. ( this being 3 months down the line). Then when I made it clear that I would have declined this at the outset, before the bank made a credit search, the bank decided to put that money into my account without informing me- oh! and as a final insult charged me the interest rate for the higher amount for the whole time period of the remortgage - 2yrs. The bank admitted that errors had been made - and it was simply a case of agreeing a remedy.
We could not agree so I took the matter to the Fos.
The adjudicator did not bother to read my information and instead chose to speak to the bank- and his decision was full of "in fairness to the bank". There was not a single mention of fairness to me as the customer.
A paltry sum was offered- and no mention of the various errors, accept that that my complaint was upheld- and please can I return the money.
I then took the matter to an Obudsman.
I wrote detailed a chronological list of events showing what had happened and to be honest I might as well have penned a lot of baby talk as when I got the response today, it was clear that the Ombudsman had only given my case a cursory glance if that.
The ombudsmans' summary of the situation had blatant errors, did not even attempt to address the errors made- completely glossed over them ( guess it must be ok for banks to charge way above the correct interest rates- because no one takes them to task) and decided that a punary dinky bit of compensation is ok.
I am disgusted. I have no faith in this service if an Ombudsman cannot even interpret written evidence or grasp time frames ( by the way, my mortgage deal ends this month, so fat lot of good a "waiving " of early repayment fees are if I move to another mortgage provider- as if this will be possible after this).
I have no doubt whatsoever, the FOS are there for lip service only, they have no interest whatsoever in the ordinary person. For a bank to be allowed to make blatant errors and recieve not even a tiny reprimand is wrong.
By the way, I genuinely had no input in the errors the bank made.
This was a horrible, horrible situation not of my making, but it has left me shattered, worn out, disallusioned and in a state of despair.
To find that the Ombudsman doesn't even bother to take the time to read or understand a situation is the final demoralisation.
An unhappy experience all round.
It took over a full year for this service to make a decision
We could not agree so I took the matter to the Fos.
The adjudicator did not bother to read my information and instead chose to speak to the bank- and his decision was full of "in fairness to the bank". There was not a single mention of fairness to me as the customer.
A paltry sum was offered- and no mention of the various errors, accept that that my complaint was upheld- and please can I return the money.
I then took the matter to an Obudsman.
I wrote detailed a chronological list of events showing what had happened and to be honest I might as well have penned a lot of baby talk as when I got the response today, it was clear that the Ombudsman had only given my case a cursory glance if that.
The ombudsmans' summary of the situation had blatant errors, did not even attempt to address the errors made- completely glossed over them ( guess it must be ok for banks to charge way above the correct interest rates- because no one takes them to task) and decided that a punary dinky bit of compensation is ok.
I am disgusted. I have no faith in this service if an Ombudsman cannot even interpret written evidence or grasp time frames ( by the way, my mortgage deal ends this month, so fat lot of good a "waiving " of early repayment fees are if I move to another mortgage provider- as if this will be possible after this).
I have no doubt whatsoever, the FOS are there for lip service only, they have no interest whatsoever in the ordinary person. For a bank to be allowed to make blatant errors and recieve not even a tiny reprimand is wrong.
By the way, I genuinely had no input in the errors the bank made.
This was a horrible, horrible situation not of my making, but it has left me shattered, worn out, disallusioned and in a state of despair.
To find that the Ombudsman doesn't even bother to take the time to read or understand a situation is the final demoralisation.
An unhappy experience all round.
It took over a full year for this service to make a decision