What Can the UK Financial Ombudsman Do For You?
If you’ve been the victim of mis-selling or another wrong, you might feel hurt more than anything else. Losing your money to any type of financial deal is just not what you want to look forward to. You definitely need to figure out what you’re going to do in order to get things moving in the right direction. Just hoping that everything will be alright isn’t the answer, but at the same time you don’t want to think that you’re just going through the motions, either. You have to find what justice means to you. Getting your complaint settled is probably the best way to make sure that you have some peace. It might not take away the pain of being misled, but it can help you get back on track. When we don’t fight for what we believe in, we start thinking that nothing is worth fighting for. That’s just not the case. You’ll find that there are a lot of things to fight for that are absolutely worthwhile. Get a big player on your side…how about a financial ombudsman?
If you’re going to bring the Ombudsman Service — which is a third party that’s designed to be as neutral as possible, you need to know when to bring them in. First and foremost, you will need to demonstrate proof that you tried to handle things with the business directly. You can’t just go from being wronged to running to the FOS. You need to make sure that you go as far up the corporate chain as possible before you turn things over to the FOS. Keeping all of your correspondence in written form is very wise, as it means that you can demonstrate a paper trail. Just doing everything on the phone isn’t very smart at all because you have no record that you took any action. Even letters in the post is good because then you will have a record, but only if you use the return recipes to prove the time and dates letters were sent out and received by the company.
Misunderstandings with businesses happen, and it’s easy to get information crossed. Could you be misunderstanding something that’s happening? If so, you need to make sure that you get whatever clarification you can before filing the complaint. You also need to give it time. Jumping the gun isn’t going to get your complaint resolved any faster. If the business you’re working with handles complaints on a six week timetable, then you must abide by those guidelines first before you can move to the FOS for anything related to that issue with that company.
Of course, if you know that things are already too far gone for all of that, you want to look at the complain process itself. You need to do things in a certain format in order to have your complaint be seen as a valid one.
Everything needs to be summed up as quickly as possible. This isn’t the time to go into a big novel about why you’ve been wronged. As emotional as you might be, you need to save the theatrics for someone else. It’s going to make a lot more sense for you to actually talk to them about the proper way to live rather than something that just doesn’t make sense. The more that you can put into things, the better off you will be. It’s just the way that it is. Learn to summarize because the FOS has a lot of other cases that need their attention.
It’s important that you’re only working with financial stuff that the FOS can handle in terms of complaints. Banking? Safe. Insurance? Safe. Mortgages? Safe. Credit cards and store cards? Safe. Loans and credit? Safe. But if you have a complaint that you think is going to be outside the scope of the FOS, you need to call them before you file the complaint. This way they can tell you exactly where they stand on the issue. Filing a complaint is easy on your side, but it can be very complex on the side of the FOS. They have to make sure that they’ve looked into all applicable laws for your case. This means that you aren’t going to get a speedy resolution to your case just by going to the FOS. You’re going to need to make sure that you’re looking into absolutely every avenue to avoid the long delay if you’re not careful.
If you know that your complaint falls under control that the FOS deals with, then you are urged to get your financial complaint settled. While it’s not a quick process, it is a process that lets you get a final decision. Keep in mind that once the FOS decides — that’s it. You will not be able to appeal their decision, but you can make a complaint on the FOS if you still feel that you haven’t gotten the resolution you’re looking for. The FOS is so impartial though that these cases are rare. You should get a modest outcome. The limit on a FOS case goes up to 150,000 pounds, so keep that in mind too when it comes to calculating the amount of damages you should receive. Good luck!
