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Once the bank has completed a full investigation into your claim, they will send a final response letter. These are explained in more depth under the “Getting a Decision” tab, however, it will either be an uphold or a rejection.
Rejections are whereby the bank do not agree the account was mis-sold. If your claim is rejected by the lender, there are further steps we can take to appeal the decision.
The first step is to discuss the reasoning behind the decision with you, the client, to ascertain whether or not you agree. For example, the bank may state you claimed on the PPI policy for 6 months and benefited from the policy. If this is the case, then the bank may have a valid reason for stating the policy was not mis-sold. We will discuss the full final response with you and if you still believe the account was mis-sold, we will then ask the lender to consider the case again with the new information provided. This is referred to as a “re-investigation.”
Usually, when the bank reject a complaint, the next step would be to proceed with the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). The FOS are a body that will independently assess a case without prejudice, looking at all of the facts and will then make a decision on whether or not they believe the account was mis-sold. They have the power to overturn the decision by the banks and request that the bank pay you the compensation for a successful claim. This process is a lengthy one and can take anywhere up to two years from their receipt of the complaint.
At Brazier Consulting Services, we do not utilise the FOS until it is absolutely necessary to avoid any unnecessary delays in your claim.
Once we have discussed the final response with you, if you believe the account was still mis-sold, then we will formulate a re-investigation letter to send to the banks. A re-investigation can consist of anything from new facts about the circumstances surrounding the sale of the policy to personal statements from client’s that explain in more detail the reasons as to why they believe the account was mis-sold.
Typically, the banks take around 6 weeks to reassess a complaint. When the bank consider the new facts, they may well change their decision and offer you redress for the account in question. We always recommend utilising the re-investigations process before proceeding with the Financial Ombudsman Service to give the banks a fair chance to deliberate on all of the facts that may not have been apparent when the complaint was initially sent.
Once the lender has looked into the case again, the decision to reject the complaint may still stand. If this is the case and you still believe the account was mis-sold, then we would always advise referring the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. This involves filling in a questionnaire and submitting a complaint to the independent body who will then look into all of the facts and make a decision. This process can take anywhere from 3 months up to 2 years.
Once the FOS make a decision, we take it as final. The FOS upheld 66% of PPI complaints referred to them in 2016. If the FOS uphold the complaint, they will tell the lender to get in touch with you and offer you compensation as per the redress guidelines. If the FOS do not believe the account was mis-sold, they will let all parties know and the case will then be closed for good.
We always recommend exhausting all processes internally with BCS before proceeding to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Our processes are concise and efficient enabling us to offer a service to our client’s that reflects our dedication and focus to customer satisfaction.
If you would like to find out more or receive a rejection from the bank, please ensure you get in touch with us as soon as possible with any of the means provided on our website and we’ll be happy to help.
