I took a case to them for a friend who was being tricked by AXA insurance over a subsidence claim. I provided EVIDENCE to the FoS, they totally ignored it, they came down in favour of the insurers AXA, they then want to publish a report on how good they are which is full of lies and totally inaccurate information. They are a waste of time, I wonder how much the CEO gets paid to run this bunch of know nothing, cant be bothered pen pushers with no idea what they are doing. I suggest go straight to Court and use the reviews on here to support the reason why using them is pointless and wastes your time. They are funded by the very people they investigate, why would you get an HONEST decision? I have written to the Chair Baroness, lets see if this lady can instil some honesty and work ethic into them. Perhaps the time has come for the person at the top to be accountable, without a golden handshake!! Have they all missed the appalling reviews, it is not a coincidence.

Process takes far too long. Final response from the Ombudsman insinuates that I am a liar and not credible. These are his opinions and not based on facts. The service is supposed to be fair and unbiased. In my opinion it is not. A former barrister made the outcome decision in my case. He may know the law but he definitely needs to go back to basics and learn how to write an inoffensive decision. Would I use the service again, absolutely not. It is interesting that you can’t leave feedback on their site but you can complain to the independent assessor which is what I am going to do.

Corrupt organisation that is NOT impartial These Financial Ombudsman Service is completely biased toward the finance institution it represents. From my experience they appear to be a corrupt and very deceiving organisation that is in no way whatsoever impartial .

This service is utterly inept, lacking competence, customer service, or indeed the concept of responding to cases in a timely manner. My claims assessor took 10 months to investigate my complaint (insurer refusing to pay out for storm damage), and seemed to have no concept of the fact that a storm will cause lasting structural damage to a property. When I requested that this was looked at again, the 2nd assessor, also declined the complaint. They then had the audacity to ask me if I was happy with the result of the complaint, and when I explained that I obviously wasn't, they just closed it anyway! Looks like a trip to the small claims court to follow. Don't waste your time with these incompetent cretins!

Where can I start? How can this service be at all impartial when they get purely funded from the people whom you are complaining about? Most of the financial Companies are aware of this and intentionally frustrate and delay each of their customer's complaints and eventually leave them with no option but for them to get salvation refer them to the Financial Ombudsman with perfect knowledge that 9 out of 10 of these complaints would never get an uphold or positive decisions.Or by extensive delays caused by them the complainant eventually get disheartened or forget about their complaints altogether. Another unfair practice is that the person deciding on your complaint is never available to talk to for one reason or another. More often than not the file handlers at the financial ombudsman intentionally twist the facts regarding ones complaint or intentionally turn the table around to make it that the complainant are the guilty party here for bringing their complaint to them at the first place and even in the areas where seldomly ones complaint is upheld, the penalties are extremely trimmed to the lowest amount as a payout again to minimise to the favour of the Companies complaints were made against. All of these works perfectly well to the favour of the entity you are complaining about and that is the strategy in order to release these financial companies from their liabilities and obligations to their customers. So it has become a norm by simply passing the Buck to the guys at the Financial Ombudsman who in affect are acting as lap dogs to these financial companies not answerable to or regulated by anyone. The initial file handler staff are often not knowledgeable in the areas where the complaints are made and cannot and would not accept any criticism whatsoever that they are wrong in their handling or assumptions. As soon as anyone question their actions or methods they quickly refer the complaint to an Ombudsman who should have really been the one dealing with your complaint at the first place. But delays are their strategy. These Ombudsmen too, are like God figures who no-one can ever approach or talk to and their involvement yet entails extreme and prolonged delays of up to a year or more before they would consider your complaint where most often they too eventually follow and provide the exact same verdict as the original file handler correct or not but this time with a little more detail and finesse. This is just because so as not to lose face as a an organisation for entirely not bothering to do their job properly or as per their original appointment. So as a whole the Financial Ombudsman is very much an unfair practise, basically flawed, purely one-sided ,obsolete by any standard. If you seriously are looking for a fair hearing and a fair outcome to your complaint then forget the Financial Ombudsman as you are definitely not going to get it there.

Ombudsman said they can't dictate how Aviva run their business. Aviva used a false report in order to decline my claim. That's nothing to do with dictating to a company that's being complicit the report was never removed for me its a company maintaining a lie as they had ample time to remove the report. The appointed assessor by Aviva conducted a fake survey he stated there was no visible damage in need of repair he never evidenced the end of the house where the damage was clear this was the reason for my complaint. Ombudsman's view on these companies were I was unhappy with the assessor's report and they don't know why Aviva didn't change there report. Ombudsman's reason for not upholding my claim, the report stated in order to uphold the claim we must answer yes to these three conditions. 1,was there a storm at the time. Yes. 2,was the damage consistent with storm damage. Yes. 3,was the storm the main cause of the damage. Blank. Ombudsman went on to say they think the damage may have been caused over time. My claim was declined because of a thought no reason no evidence. It's all wrong if there are bad practices in order to decline a claim the claim should be upheld. For me making bland comments about these practices means complicity by the ombudsman. To decline a claim on a thought needs investigation. The system looks corrupt there is no reason why my claim was not upheld. I believe the Ombudsman's report would've stand scrutiny.

Slow.No copies of written correspondence with the culpable party. All way too opaque. Multiple requests for the same data. Lack of compassion nor understanding of the overall distress.....compounded by an unprofessional untrained attitude to a case. And painfully nay insulting unacceptable time to process a complaint. The FOS staff are PAID by the subscribers per case taken on. Amounts almost to a bribe. It's how case workers and ombudsmen are remunerated. What insentive is there to assist the victim? I am absolutely convinced there is an unhealthy relationship between the FoS and the Financial institution. If not, then reveal the correspondence. Don't come back with "I spoke to X bank and they said...." Then prove it.As for an Ombudsman " reviewing" a case workers decision, forget an impartial view. Cooked from beginning to end. Be#t.

No moral principles This is an awful organisation who's practices need looking in to urgently. You only need to look a bit closer in to the individuals who are carrying out investigations in to complaints. This organisation doesnt work to a set of principles that are consistent. If you raise any queries or complain about a decision they won't actually address the issues you have raised and just reiterate what they have already said. I complained about an adjucator and the complaint was investigated by that adjudicators own line manager. I'll say no more.

Government should get rid of this service and replace by once backed up by the government. FOS is financed by the banks and financial institutions, so you will never win if you have got any complaint against banks. So don't waste your time or energy. They are so biased, unfair and definitely not independent.

I'm not sure they even exist. The nearest you will come to experiencing a 'Black Hole' on planet earth. This is how the government cone the public in leading you to believe you can make a claim against business. If you need to get money back or compensation then try to get a County Court Judgement (CCJ) and use baliffs. If this does'nt work then god help you but stay away from the FOS.

after wasting my time writing to these inept dilettantes and waiting forever for a reply they have furnished me with their impartial ( bwahahahahaha ) decision. Personally if the cretin who wrote their reply had actually read what i wrote then perhaps things might have made sense. Now apparently i have 2 loans not 1 as i told them, the loan insurance i was told was invalid by the PPI company as i had to be bankrupt before i could claim (didn't need it then) was never addressed. Of course the cretin has concluded that i was treated fairly by the bank since the banks pay their wages. This shower should be disbanded and the adjudicators fired for unbelievable stupidity, don't waste your time with these people, total pinheads one and all. If there was an option for minus 5 stars i'd give them that with pleasure

Had a problem with warranties for insurance work carried out during the 2014 Somerset levels flooding. Ended up being forced by Coop insurance company to take my complaint to Ombudsman only to have it done by an Investigator who had no knowledge of the issues and did not even understand what the complaint was. Was then left waiting as I rejected her decision for month’s , when I asked how long before an Ombudsman would investigate was telephoned by her manager with what I can only describe as abusive manner telling me that they had more important cases to investigate than mine and I would have to wait. The process took 17 Months with an out of the blue decision arriving last week. Ombudsman did not even contact me but made a decision on the same flawed investigators decision just copying and pasting, Do not consider this a service that is fit for purpose with neither the Investigator or the Ombudsman having any clue as to what the complaint was about.

the financial ombudsman may help you if your issue has an easy fix but do not use this service if your complaint is anything more than straight forward, my case was based around severely challenging times through ill health and family issues, proof was provided on request from the ombudsman but I still had to jump through hoops just to get responses from them, after all the trouble providing everything they requested I was bitterly disappointed to receive an email from them telling me they would not even take on my case as they believed my situation wasn't severe enough, this obviously left me feeling insulted and frustrated.

I've used this ridiculous service twice ; I consider that to be qualified enough to spell it out for what it really is : a contrived service, not that dissimilar to an extended complaints procedure. Even in the the face of blatant complancy and / contempt from whatever institution you are seeking recourse : you will get none. The ombudsman service is little more than a "quango" that in all its contrived efforts, achieves nothing in the interest of the person/ persons raising the complaint. The ombudsman service is an affront to common decency and respect. It pays itself salarys and pensions, whilst making decisions that more often that not - lets say 99% of the time : puts people at a serious disadvantage - without the slightest regard for the damage that has been inflicted against these peoples and their lives. It is a contrived, condescending - self - serving scheme that constitutes nothing in the interest of fairness and accountability. People need to see this service for what it really is! THAT PROTECTS THE ESTABLISHMENTS AND THEIR STOOGES. Nothing more.

Allianz insurance decided I was at fault after an accident based on an initial phone call - they didn't follow up any other evidence, didn't call me and when I finally call them their complaints department gave me the runaround for several months. FO handler says that this is all perfectly reasonable and upholds every point the insurers make using their exact wording too. Not at all impartial or independent, she couldn't even bother to come up with a different way to describe her decision.

I went to FOS after my endowment matured last October, to my utter shock after paying in £78.56 a month for the full 25 years whereby I paid £23568, I was told by Royal London that I would receive only £25568, target amount was £62400. Without even bothering to investigate my complaint at FOS upheld Royal London's decision because within a week of speaking with her, she wrote back to me with her biased decision. How a full investigation can be carried out so quickly is beyond me. Obviously she made sure that she kept Royal London happy and not the customer who had been completely let down by Royal London. No wonder most people have no faith in financial institutions of any kind in this country,they are all there to line their own pockets and stuff the customers, we do not matter at all. They just want our money. Don't bother to deal with either of these companies, they are totally unprofessional, and will only look after themselves at your your expense. FOS should be abolished and a proper independent authority should be created, so that we have somebody to turn to who will help us and not the financial organisations.

We were mis-sold wrong type of finance (not what we asked for and inappropriate for our needs) and we didn't realise it at the time and so we signed the forms Truth came out three years later and the FSO's position is "you signed the agreement so that's just too bad" The fact that the paperwork was for a mis-sold product didn't matter In summary, their position is : mis-selling is OK as long as the customer doesn't spot it at the time If you're looking for the FSO to stand up for you, you're in trouble Remember who funds them - that tells where their allegiance lies Utterly corrupt and not worth the effort