26th August 2010
"National Complaints Day" - sponsored by the FSA and FOS???
An occasional look at the FOS website can offer revealing and sometimes disturbing insights into how that particular organisation operates. "National Complaints Day" is one such example.
The FOS appears to have been heavily involved in "National Complaints Day" on Friday 13 August along with the FSA, who have advised that they did not take part despite the link suggesting this may not be quite the case. Other parties involved included the Which? Legal Service. We have always been a little uncomfortable with FOS' activities in what appears to be actively encouraging complaints (or "raising awareness of their services" as they prefer to put it) but their involvement in "National Complaints Day" really does look like a step too far.
The main feature on the National Complaints Day website is a competition to win an iPAD for the best complaint posted on National Complaints day. This is totally inappropriate and makes light of what are very serious issues. The FOS can award redress of up to £100k plus interest and in many cases that amount, or even the excess on a PI policy, could be enough to put a firm out of business. If someone has a genuine complaint about a service or product that they have received they will not require an incentive to bring that complaint and such incentives will arguably encourage spurious complaints that may not otherwise be brought or may have been resolved informally.
For several years the FOS seems to have measured its success by the number of complaints it is able to generate and how much the organisation can grow. In that way it behaves like a corporate entity, privately run for profit, the "Tesco" of the regulatory system. But this is a new low and an inauspicious start for the new Chief Executive, Natalie Ceeney.
There appears to be no formal mechanism to complain about these types of activity by the FOS, with the "independent assessor" dealing only with "service complaints". It is probably a vain hope that anyone with authority in the regulatory structure takes FOS to task about this latest initiative.
Many thanks to Alan Hughes of solicitors Foot Anstey for bringing this to our attention. I am not entirely sure that this is how a Regulator should be spending money, especially when positioning itself too closely to organizations that stand to benefit financially.
Comments (1)
However if there really is (was) a National Complaints day, what better date than Friday 13th?
So may I too add a few complaints to the list?
1. To those idiots in Westminster (both past and present). Please can we have a proper qualification for those who sit in Westminster?
2. To HMRC – do you think we could have people who work there knowing and understanding the system they are supposed to administer and responding to communication in a prompt courteous and timely manner?
3. Can we please have an end to all this PC piffle? Children are not harmed by a clip round the ear; Policemen sometimes have to do dangerous things - ‘Elf and Safety' should not preclude them from doing so. There is nothing sexist in complementing a lady on her great legs. Gay means happy it does not mean Homosexual .....and so forth.
The list is endless and of course includes inept insurance companies, poor standards in our shops, weasel words in car warranties, lousy service on Ryanair, the state of our roads, railways and airports and on and on and on.
I would also like to complain about National Complaints day – why didn’t I know about it? I and others could have inundated these muppets with our grievances!
Harry Katz
Norwest 26/08/2010 09:33
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