Complaints procedures

Any expression of dissatisfaction from or on behalf of a customer whether oral, electronic or written and whether justified or not which includes an actual or potential financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience.

To be ‘eligible’ it must also be about a regulated activity or product. ‘Eligible’ here means one that must be treated according to the prescribed procedures in the FCA Handbook. Most firms treat ...

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...:

(a) alleges that the complainant has suffered (or may suffer) financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience; and

(b) relates to an activity of that respondent, or of any other respondent with whom that respondent has some connection in marketing or providing financial services or products, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Financial Ombudsman Service.”

Complaint rules for both MiFID and non-MiFID firms are the same.

In this section examples are given to help to illustrate the difference between a complaint that must be dealt with according to strict procedure and one which may be dismissed.

Brief examples of hard and soft complaints:

A customer calls to complain that his call has not been returned.

In this case it has to be assessed whether or not the customer has lost out financially or been caused material distress or inconvenience. It is likely that there has only been the minor annoyance of having to call again, in which case this can be treated as a ‘soft’ complaint.

A customer calls to complain that he has been incorrectly advised to invest in risky assets when he had ...

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...d products are many and various but briefly include investments, mortgages (residential and consumer buy to let) and insurance. There are some investments, commercial mortgages, loans and warranty products that fall outside the regulated business definition. Complaints about these are neither subject to the rules nor eligible for recourse to the ombudsman. Firms may still use the same procedure and the FOS will decide if the complaint is eligible or not in the event of doubt.

Means of Communication

A firm cannot insist that complaints are made by letter. Verbal complaints, emailed complaints and even complaints made via social media must be considered if it is appropriate to do so.