The latest complaints data from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) shows that Barclays Bank was the most complained about financial services firm in the second half of last year.
Racking up complaints from 3,284 customers in respect of investment advice between July and December 2011, Barclays featured in the top ten along with Santander, Lloyds Banking Group and Zurich.
Of course these large firms are expected to receive high volumes of complaints due to the big number of customers they deal with.
Looking at the overall complaints figures, firms saw customer complaints grow by 21% compared to the first half of the year. This is largely due to higher numbers of complaints about the sale of payment protection insurance (PPI).
This latest complaints data was released on the same day it was announced that the Ministry of Justice is launching an investigation into claims management companies as a result of their high volume of invalid complaints on behalf of customers allegedly mis-sold PPI.
It is claimed that banks are now rejecting up to half of the claims put forward by claims management companies, with some complaints in respect of customers who never even had a PPI policy!
Anyone who has been on the receiving end of the typical marketing tactics used by claims management companies will already be aware that they focus on volume, often making unrealistic promises about the level of compensation available and neglecting to mention the high levels of commission they take.
If you have a valid complaint about a financial services product or firm, you do not need to use a complaints management company.
The first port of call is to make your complaint directly to the firm. They must consider and respond to your complaint within a reasonable timescale.
If you are not satisfied with their response, at that stage you can refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). This Ombudsman is funded by financial services companies and acts as an independent arbitrator to resolve complaints.
Any decisions made by the Ombudsman are binding on the firm.
One way to reduce the likelihood of having to complain in the future is to seek advice from an independent financial adviser. The complaints levels for IFA firms are generally much lower, as a proportion of the customers they work with, than those of the banks.
Better still is to work with a firm of Chartered Financial Planners, providing independent financial advice and charging fees rather than receiving commission for selling products.
Whilst the FSA complaints data does not provide sufficient detail to confirm this, you can be confident that a high quality IFA firm like this has an even better complaints record than the banking or IFA sector in general.
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