I have a current packaged bank account complaint and can confirm the FOS's poor practises.

Important info in my case was drip fed to the FOS from the bank without my disclosure.

The FOS caseworker would ring me sometimes 5 days later than agreed.

The caseworker would then ambush me on the phone about information I knew nothing about, hardly good advocacy at any level.

The They could not even read a bank statement correctly which led to sleepless nights because the FOS caseworker attributed a 11k withdrawal to the wrong company making me believe fraud had occurred, that is until many weeks later once I got sight of the bank statements I requested from the FSO and realised the FSO caseworker's school boy error.

Even when I demanded the case be dealt with by another caseworker due to incompetence this was ignored and a decision railroaded.

Now I have a legitimate claim for harassment against the caseworker for refusing to hand the case over and for continuing to ring me trying to harass me with questions about information not prior disclosed to me.

I held a senior management post at The Home Office for over 23 years so I am used to dealing with casework and policy matters at all levels. I believe I am well qualified therefore to categorically state what a complete mess and state of denial the FOS is in.

Until MP's experience this poor level of service I seriously doubt things will change for the better.

Hello and welcome to CAG.

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience, are there questions you'd like us to answer please?

My best, HB

Hi Honeybee, not sure if anyone has experienced using the independent assessor set up to consider complaints about the level of service of the FOS, although this appointment seems in house. Thought I'd share my current experience of the FOS with others.

Until MP's experience this poor level of service I seriously doubt things will change for the better.

Absolutely.

I've recently contacted my MP about FOS bias issues,

basing decisions on (the bank's/businesse's) hearsay evidence,

not sharing evidence relied upon,

not giving me adequate opportunity submit all documents,

lack of updates from the adjudicator,

not respecting my communication needs amongst other things.

You can use the writetothem website to find out your MP, then send email/letter from within that site:

https://www.writetothem.com/

Or use theyworkforyou website. Can write to your MP from there also:

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/

Very informative and helpful, thank you parity4all.

UPDATE: Well I have some surprises for everyone reading this thread. I contacted Caroline Wayman Chief Ombudsman about my concerns about how my case was being handled. The Ombudsman Team leader looked into it and decided there were mistakes made and offered an apology. The case was looked at again in accordance with procedures and the original decision overturned in my favour against Barclays Bank. In this instance justice prevails. My thanks to CAG for providing an important platform and to everyone offering advice on this thread

Makes you think how many people have complaints rejected simply because adjudicators have sided with financial services companies, based on reliance on what they have been told, rather than obtaining full information.

Well done for pursing when many would have given up.

Well done Robbie...I have amended your thread title to reflect the outcome.

Regards

Andy

Thank you Andy & unclebulgaria67