video-welcome
from David Thomas, chief ombudsman
Hello and welcome to the Financial Ombudsman Service. I’m David Thomas, the chief ombudsman. I’d like to tell you a little about what we do and how we can help you.
If you’ve fallen out with your bank, insurance company or financial firm – and you haven’t been able to solve the problem – then have a look at our website or give us a call. It’s our job to help resolve disputes between financial businesses and their customers. We were set up by parliament to do this, as independent experts. And our service to is free to consumers.
Every year we help resolve tens of thousands of disputes. So we know a lot about what causes complaints and how best to resolve them. As with any kind of dispute, it’s always best to try and sort things out as early as possible.
You should complain first to the business you think was responsible for the problem. Give them a chance to sort things out. By law, all the businesses we cover have to follow an official complaints procedure. This means they must take your complaint seriously.
If you’re having trouble getting in touch with the business you’re unhappy with, or you’re unsure about anything, let us know. We’ll explain what you need to do next. And we can contact the business you're unhappy with and tell them to look into your complaint.
If the business doesn’t sort things out, or you’re unhappy with its position on your complaint, that’s when we may be able to get involved and look into things for you. If the business isn’t able to resolve the problem to your satisfaction, this is the leaflet they should give you.
This tells you what will happens next and how we do things. It explains that we’ll need some details from you at this stage to check that your problem is one we can look into. We’ll do this by asking you to fill in our complaint form. We can help you fill it in over the phone or you can download the form off our website.
There are always two sides to every dispute, so we give both sides a fair hearing. The ombudsman service isn’t as formal as a law court but we’re completely independent and impartial, just as a judge would be if you went to court.
When we look at a complaint, we don’t take sides. We'll ask questions, we'll listen very carefully and we'll weigh up all the arguments. Then we'll tell you what we think. We can’t please both sides every time, so we might not tell you what you want to hear. We might decide you're right, or we might decide you're wrong. Or we might suggest some kind of compromise to help you and the business settle things.
But if you’ve lost out, we have the power to get things put right for you.