Tell us who the financial villains are

Tell us who the financial villains are

Have you complained to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) about a financial services company? If so, Lord Hunt needs your help. He is reviewing the FOS - the way it operates, its accessibility, and the information it provides about the complaints it encounters. The FOS deals with a staggering 95,000 complaints a year, on everything from intricate investment mis-selling to rejected pet insurance claims, and on the whole it does a good job.

But if it has one major fault, it is refusing to name and shame those it upholds complaints against. The FOS is not subject to Freedom of Information legislation, and it does not publish the result of adjudications. More than half of the complaints to the FOS relate to the 11 biggest financial groups - you would expect this, because they have the most customers. However, Walter Merricks, chief ombudsman, admits there is a wide disparity between the top 11. 'We compile a benchmarking table showing the top 11 financial groups - who produce over half of the complaints we receive, ranked simply in terms of the number of complaints referred to us proportionate to their market share... This shows consistently that the best group is approximately nine times better than the worst.' The FOS says the worst offender by far - a banking group - has been bottom of the list for five years.

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Surely it is common sense to tell consumers who the consistent offenders are? That way they can make an informed decision about where to get good customer service.

· Contact Lord Hunt via www.thehuntreview.org.uk or by writing to the Hunt Review, Beachcroft LLP, 100 Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1BN.

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