The shame of our High Street banks: Ombudsman upholds record number of complaints

[BankFodder]

High Street banks have been named and shamed for their appalling customer service in a new report by the independent Financial Ombudsman.

Banks were revealed as being far worse than any other financial institution, with the Ombudsman upholding nearly twice as many complaints against them than previously. Almost six out of every ten complaints about current and savings accounts, mortgages, loans, credit cards, insurance and investment are being resolved in favour of the consumer, the new figures show.

But in previous years just a third were being found for the consumer.

 

All of these people will have first complained to their bank but either had their complaint rejected or were offered inappropriate compensation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For example, some 71 per cent of Abbey customers who first had a complaint about a current account or loan rejected by the bank later had it upheld by the Ombudsman. A whopping 87 per cent of those who had a

complaint rejected by credit card giant Capital One later had it upheld.

The Ombudsman figures highlight Britain's biggest banks as by far the worst offenders. In total there were 69,841 complaints in the first six months of this year. The whole of Lloyds Banking Group received a total of 13,760 complaints, of which 6,947 were for Lloyds TSB, 5,804 were for Halifax/Bank of Scotland and the rest for Black Horse Finance.

Barclays received 8,283, Abbey and Alliance & Leicester combined received 4,279, Natwest and Royal Bank of Scotland had 4,191. Marc Gander, from the campaigning Consumer Action Group, says: 'These complaints should never have made it as far as the Ombudsman in the first place. 'It just shows that you should not accept a decision from a bank if it rejects your complaint. You have to take it further because many are just being rejected as out of hand.

'Banks seem to be using the Ombudsman as a way of testing the resolve of consumers to see if they really are serious about their complaint.'

Banks argue that these complaints do not reflect the size of their businesses, and are relatively few compared with the number of products they sell.

 

 

 

The shame of our High Streetbanks | Mail Online

[pompeyfaith]

having read the complaints data i am gobsmacked at the number of complaints being made it is also a good indicator as to the level of the confidence the british public have just when is the government going to wake up to this mess and take wide sweeping legislation to end it automatic bank and credit card charge refunds as well as swifter ppi refunds would end a fair percentage of complaints and in turn help the economy recover

Edited September 16, 2009 by pompeyfaith