Job cuts at the FOS
October 24, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Banking
In a recent report the Financial Ombudsman Service has announced that around a quarter of its workforce will be losing their jobs, as resources are streamlined to fit in with workloads.
Although the Financial Ombudsman Service has been receiving many complaints about bank charges it had been dealing with a high level of complaints relating to mis-sold endowment policies. The number of complaints relating to this issue reach its peak in 2005 but then began to taper off.
It is thought that the workload of the Financial Ombudsman Service will fall significantly in 2005, particularly if banks continue to reduce their overdraft charges, as many have stated they will be doing. Nearly a million complaints relating to endowment policies have been dealt with by the service of the past few years, with around seventy thousand complaints coming in for 2005. However, although more complaints were expected the issue seems to be cooling down.
One FOS spokesperson stated that staff number were being cut in order to align them with demand and workloads, and that it was hoped many of the job cuts would result from voluntary redundancy. The Financial Ombudsman Service is the main point of contact for complaints relating to financial institutions and services. The aim of the Financial Ombudsman Service is to try and resolve disputes between consumers and financial service providers, and award compensation in cases where this is deemed appropriate.
Bosses at the Financial Ombudsman Service will soon be starting consultations with the staff council in order to finalize the details of the job cuts.
Complaints relating to mis-sold endowments have dropped to under thirty thousand for this year, with one official from the FOS stating: “We are not processing the hundreds of thousands of endowment mortgage disputes since 2005.”
Tom Smith
24th October 2007
Consider financial ombudsman over bank charges
June 10, 2007 by admin
Filed under News, News-Banking
In the ongoing disputes relating to bank charges Lloyds TSB recently became the first bank to win a court case against a customer that was trying to reclaim bank charges that had been imposed for exceeding the overdraft limit on the account, and for returned cheques and direct debits.
And is seems that this unprecedented case has started to put some consumers off from trying to reclaim charges from their banks. However, experts advise that there is another route available.
This is Money has advised consumers that if they don’t feel confident about taking their bank to court of reclaiming bank charged they can simply go through the Financial Ombudsman Service. This is a free service, so consumers will have nothing to lose by taking their complaints to the ombudsman. And if, at the end of the day, the consumer does not agree with the financial ombudsman’s decision he or she can still take the case to court.
This is Money also warns that this cannot be done the other way around. So if a consumer takes the bank to court, and the judge rules in favour of the bank, the consumer cannot then take the complaint to the financial ombudsman because the judge’s ruling has to be the final one. So, anyone having trouble getting bank charges back from their bank should consider complaining to the FOS before taking the case to court.
Even banks are now using the Lloyds RSB case to try and make consumers feel as though this is a definitive decision, but this is not the case.
One FOS spokesman stated: ‘We are seeing letters from banks suggesting the Birmingham case is definitive. This is usually happening at local branch level. Often when we raise it at a senior level, head office agrees that the letters are wrong and stop any more going out.’
Tom Smith
10th June 2007
