Ombudsman Involvement

[diane11]

Hi all,

 

Can anyone tell me why folk are having to go through the courts to reclaim their charges. Cant the Ombudsman make the decisions?

[MARTIN3030]

Welcome to the site.

Whilst the ombudsman is there to uphold certain obligations,The Courts have shown to be the most effective way of getting the charges back using the force of the law.

[diane11]

Being in Scotland though it is a little off putting to have to go through the court several times to get the cash back if your claim is over the £1500 summary cause limit. I have lettered the ombudsman over the time it has taken the BOS to deal with my complaint. I originally spoke to a branch manager in September who advised me to put my complaint in writing in the form of a DPA, which I did. Got my statements along with a letter stating how my "complaint" would be dealt with. Hand delivered another letter to the branch in November asking for the charges to be refunded. Got no reply so phoned the branch in November, who said they had no record of the complaint. Sent LBA to Customer Relations on the 12th of December. Received reply saying that complaint would be dealt with certainly no later than 4 weeks from the date of the letter. However the bank are now saying they have until 15th Feb to reply as per the 8 week guidelines set out by the FSA. Also the original letter was found and logged as a complaint in September (found this out yesterday) but was advised that it was going to be deleted as it was only a DPA request. If they dont see a DPA request as a complaint then why do they answer it as one? Maybe it was due to the conversation with the branch manager as he was made fully aware of what the DPA request was going to result in. Has anyone else had this problem. DOnt see how they can just delete an original complaint reference and replace it with another to buy more time.