Send complaints to:- [email protected], [email protected] This is the inflammatory email that I got from these so-called consumer protection regulators. As she's asking for complaints I feel this is the opportunity to oblige:- " I head up the investigations team at Consumer Focus and have been forwarded an email which you sent to our contact address followed by a further email. I also note that you have had a conversation with another member of the organisation. Can I first reassure you that there is no question of Consumer Focus having done any kind of a “deal” with the company trading as Shopper Discounts & Rewards (SDR) nor do we endorse their business. We were made aware of a series of complaints against the company from consumers who felt that they had unwittingly or unknowingly signed up to the discount scheme when making a purchase through another retailer, for example Interflora or the Trainline. This led us to contact SDR to raise those concerns. Through a series of discussions, SDR made some further changes to their sign up process, which had already been substantially altered since the end of 2009. The changes included sending additional emails to consumers when they were nearing the end of their 30 day trial period. I can see that many of the articles and links that you sent in your email to John Cottrill relate to complaints arising between 2008 – 2010. As we say, SDR have changed their sign up processes since this time. While this does not mean that we agree with their business model, our concern has been to ensure that consumers are given adequate opportunity to become aware of and if they wish to, agree to the terms being proposed when they make use of the discount voucher which then leads them to sign up to SDR. For those consumers who felt that they were not made aware of the sign up process, we facilitated the requests for refunds and made sure that consumers knew how to request a refund and that SDR knew how to respond. If you have specific examples of any harm or loss which you consider to have been caused by Shoppers Discounts, we would be very interested to hear from you. We had understood that the sign up processes had been tightened up so that consumers were not signing up to the scheme in error. If this is not your recent experience, we would like to hear from you. We can then revisit this business model and where appropriate suggest either further alterations to SDR. I am out of the office until Wednesday 23 March. If you can send me any information you have by email before that date, perhaps we could arrange to speak on my return. I look forward to hearing from you. Regards Gemma Bowen Gemma Bowen Head of Consumer Focus Investigations Consumer Focus 3rd Floor, Capital Tower Greyfriars Road Cardiff CF10 3AG Phone: 02920 787100 DD: 02920 787160 Fax: 02920 787101 [email protected]" The way to deal with these companies is to email the trusted merchants i.e. interflora, pizza hut, the trainline, ticketmaster, premier inn etc. that allowed this to happen to you, as well as Consumer Focus and your MP. This company's acquisition practises have now been outlawed in the United States:- http://timeswv.com/business/x1637999206/Restore-Online-Shoppers-Confidence-Act-signed-into-law As the interviewed senator correctly observes "It’s something that government should be doing. We’re watching over things and catching people doing really bad things to people who can’t afford to have those things done to them.....Calling out people from reputable companies and making them testify in a formal setting has enormous effect...The power of embarrassment is very important" In the US as a result of this legislation, "While Vertrue, Webloyalty and Affinion still exist, they have completely stopped their scams". Let's hope this will happen here too very soon.

Topdollar, on the question about where are the statistics for complaints about Financial Services companies. The FSA produce some from returns by the companies themselves here:- http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Library/Other_publications/commentary/firm_spec/index.shtml The FOS produce the number of complaints that they receive from companies here:- http://www.ombudsman-complaints-data.org.uk/ As you say, it would be better to receive statistics on a complaints/claims ratio basis as well. Unfortunately, it's the FSA and FOS who are responsible for compiling the statistics and it's taken them a long time to be as transparent as they currently are. The FOS really need to tell us more about the complaints upheld by them. I'd like to know the average payout and how happy the complainants were with the settlement that they received. I'd also like some of the statistics to be split down. For example, the FOS has apparantly upheld 41% of AXA complaints (pretty low considering all of the hurdles which are put in a complainants way before the FOS will accept it), but of those upheld which were PPI complaints, which the FSA has already made a ruling on, and what's the upheld rate for all of the others. I'd also be interested in knowing what the experience was of the 1000s of complainants who complained to the FOS about PPI before the FSA made a ruling.

An update on my Axa horror story. Axa complaints took over the negotiation of the cash settlement as I'd lost faith in their claims management company - Crawford & Co. Axa complaints lowballed the first offer, I countered with a high offer. Axa complaints then sent me a letter raising their offer by a couple of hundred pounds and telling me I'd receive a cheque within 5-7 working days. I emailed them straightaway and told them I'd rejected their offer and would return the cheque if I received it, and gave them an offer which was based on the lowest quote + additional items which had been missed off the quote but which would be needed to restore my bathroom to the state that it was in prior to the incident. 2 days later, I receive the cheque that I'd rejected. I emailed them telling them that I'd already rejected the cheque and asking why they'd sent it. No reply. Sent back the cheque via recorded post. 4 hours later get email with attached letter accepting my final offer but telling me that as I'd sent back their cheque they would now delay payment until they'd received their unsolicited cheque back and had it cancelled by their accounts office. They received their cheque back yesterday. I told them that sending cheques through unrecorded post is unacceptable and I'd like an electronic funds transfer. I got a reply telling me that I could expect it in 5-7 working days. So it took them 1 working day to send a cheque for the offer that they wanted to pay me but 5-7 working days when it's my offer. Topdollar, I lost faith in the Crawford & Co. because:- i) They ignored all emails from me between 13/12 and 19/1. ii) The claims handler's phone number was never answered. iii) The claims handler eventually contacted meonly when I sent an email the FSA registered officer at the company. iv) They then tried to foist a cowboy builder on me. I define a cowboy as somebody who claims to be a member of an accredited scheme which he's not. This is illegal. v) Crawford & Co. didn't apologise for the cowboy builder but told me he was the only guy on their books that covered my postcode (and his office is 1.5 hours commute from my house so presumably covers more than just my postcode). They then told me my only option was to agree a cash settlement with Axa. vi) I then obtained 3 quotes from local builders based on a spec of works which I agreed with Crawford & Co. and gave them to Crawford & Co. Crawford & Co. then revealed the scope of works that the loss adjuster had come up with on 13/12/2010 and that I'd been asking for in emails/phone calls since. They told me I had to go back to the builders for a re-quote. At this point, I'd had enough. During this period, everytime I complained about Crawford & Co., Axa just re-directed me to them. However, they did agree to take over at this point. I lodged a complaint with them about all of these points. It took them 23 working days from the initial complaint on 19/1 to their final decision. Needless to say, it skimmed over all of the points, rejected my complaints and told me to go to the FOS, if I disagreed. At no point have I been rude to Axa or Crawford & Co. staff. There are very strong libel laws in this country and forums like this are usually monitored. If any of the above were untrue, you can be sure their lawyers would be on the phone straightaway.

Axa's policy wording "Our promise We will acknowledge written complaints promptly. Actually, it took them 5 working days to acknowledge my complaint and 1 month and 1 week to respond to my complaint. We will investigate quickly and thoroughly. 1 month and 1 week may be quick in insurance companies alternative universe not mine. Alot of the points made in my complaint were conveniently skipped over. e.g. Crawford & Co. using a cowboy builder was answered by saying the builder may have been a cowboy but Crawford & Co. would guarantee their work (obviously a precis of their response). The requirements to become a Crawford & Co. builder are shown here - http://www.crawfordandcompany.com/content.aspx?CID=219&SID=6. The reality is that the builder in question didn't even have a limited company. The fact that I was told he was the only builder covering my postcode was ignored. Delays were due to the volume of communication that I sent and inevitable for a claim of this nature. We will keep you informed of progress. I received no progress on my claim. Whenever I contacted Axa claims, I was told that it was Crawford & Co.s responsibility. We will do everything possible to resolve your complaint Erm, I think the obvious things they could of done was to hire a legitimate builder or make a fair cash settlement promptly, neither of which they did. We will learn from our mistakes Judging by the FOS complaints about Axa, there doesn't appear to be any downward trend going on. We will use the information from complaints to continuously improve our service. As above." As to my request that I be paid for having to perform the roles of surveyor and project manager instead of Crawford & Co., I was directed to the policy wording in my insurance document which says "What you must do after making your claim Provide at your own expense all reports, certificated plans, specification information and assistance that we may need" Here's the service that Crawford & Co.claim a policyholder will receive http://www.crawfordandcompany.com/content.aspx?CID=265&SID=8 The actual service is about as far removed from this as is possible.

Hi bernie129, Never had any dealings with Aviva so far, but am in an insurance claim horror story with Axa, so I know the bad lads in the industry nowadays. 2 sources for who gets complained about the most:- From the brokers who you'd expect to side with the insurers:- http://www.broking.co.uk/insurance-age/opinion/1563999/the-bad-average From the FOS, which publishes statistics on how many complaints they get about insurers:- http://www.ombudsman-complaints-data.org.uk/ The large insurers like Aviva & Axa will complain that the statistics are so high for them because they underwrite so many policies. It would be nicer if the fos published complaints/policies held as well but I think that you can draw your own conclusions as to the quality of these companies claims handling services when they're regularly getting over 500 complaints about them every 6 months, given that it takes weeks before a policyholder is likely to have complained to the insurance company and then they have to wait up to 8 weeks for a final complaint to be issued before compiling all the evidence and presenting it to the FOS. In any case, if they published complaints/policies, the insurers would just say that the complaints had gone up because the number of claims had gone up citing some event that happens most years e.g. flooding as the cause. So you could then ask for complaints/claims which may well be the most accurate way of determining the bad lads.

I doubt that anybody would make stories up about an insurance company for no good reason. As you point out there are strong defamation laws, and insurance companies would definitely use them, given the slightest opportunity. As it happens, the FOS does report complaints data, and Aviva is indeed top of the list, followed by Axa.

Makes sense what you're saying bernie129 and I do sympathise a lot. I used to work as a contractor and went back to perm due to the hassle involved in negotiating contracts. In my situation, the claims management company tried to foist a cowboy builder on me, who I rejected so then they said my only solution was to get a cash settlement from the insurance company and find my own builder. Now submitted 3 quotes to the insurance company and have given a host of reasons why I think the cheapest of the 3 quotes is not a fair and reasonable settlement. Awaiting the claim's handler's response so that we can open negotiations. I didn't find it that hard to find builder's willing to quote in the end but I live in London so the place is awash with builders. I got my quotes from checkatrade.com, mainly because they show whether a company is limited or not, whether they're VAT registered, what accredited schemes they're members of (with hyperlinks), what insurance they hold and where they're located and have worked. I ignore the ratings, the reviews or photos as these are unverifiable. There are other websites such as mybuilder.com if you want a cheap job done with no chance of recovering your money if things go badly wrong.

Ok, got the 3rd quote at last. The quotes are now:- 1. £10k 2. £9k 3. £6.5k Obviously, the insurance company have been trying to hammer me down on the lowest of these 3 quotes. Any advice on how to proceed? If a loss assessor will charge me 15% but can get the highest of these 3 quotes then it would obviously be worthwhile me pursuing this option. I'd make sure that I didn't sign anything unless it guaranteed me a settlement minus his fee which was higher than the mean of these 3 quotes - £8.5k.

Good observations there, bernie129. Of course needing to bid for work for free and more times than not, not getting the work isn't just a problem which hits the building trade. For bigger jobs, there's a bigger prize at stake and it would be rare for a householder to get more than 3 quotes for the reasons you've outlined, so there's a 1:3 chance of getting the work which aren't too bad odds.

"Jdey123, the insurer will argue if you didn't want the cheaper builder to do the job, why provide it? why not get another?the insurer is always going to go for the cheaper option.". Why get 3 quotes, if only 1 will be accepted. Rationally, the median of a reasonable range of quotes is the fair and reasonable offer. The cheaper quote means that the policyholder can only get the work done without being out of pocket, if the builder is willing to proceed at the original price. Besides, the lower of the 3 quotes is the insurer's opening position not his final one, so asking me to settle for less than the lower of the 3 quotes would not meet the requirement that they have to restore my bathroom to it's original state or provide a cash settlement which enables me to do this. Any negotiations down would have to be accepted by the builder.

I'm in a similar boat. I had an "Escape of water" incident in the bathroom and lodged the claim early December. Crawford & Co. were appointed as the loss adjusters and arrived 1 week later. They left telling me that a drying company would be appointed within the week. Didn't hear anything so eventually complained to Axa about lack of correspondence from Crawford in January. On numerous occasions, I asked for a specification of works for the job in hand all of which were ignored. Crawford & Co. eventually appointed a builder who lives 1.5 hours commute from me. I checked him out and he wasn't a member of any of the schemes he claimed on his website so I said that I wouldn't accept him. Repairnet seemed completely unperturbed that what he was doing is illegal. They forgot to tell him this, so he actually visited my house. Crawford then told me that he was the only builder that they had to cover my postcode so my only option was to appoint my own builder. As Crawford continued to ignore my requests for the specification of work and bill of materials, I then produced my own and sent it to them for review. They verbally told me to go ahead and get quotes. Once I received 2 of the 3 quotes, I sent them back to them with a detailed site questionnaire filled in by the builders. I expected at this point, Crawford to start negotiating on cost of materials. Their opening gambit was that they would only accept the lower of the 3 quotes as the starting point. They then went on to query the specification of works and bill of materials, saying that the loss adjuster's specification of works didn't cover a new bath or toilet. I then demanded to see the loss adjuster's specification of work and as per yourself, I received it yesterday minus the rates and missing quite a bit of work that all 3 of my builders say needs to be done. From reading this email trail, it sounds like it will be in my interest to engage a loss assessor. I'm waiting for the 3rd quote now and have just posted my job to some more builders so that I can get a better average. As there's almost £3k difference between the 1st quote and the 2nd quote, I imagine that a loss assessor may well get me the average of these 2, rather than the lower minus any adjustements to costs of materials which is obviously what Crawford's are aiming for. In terms of accomodation, I've already made it clear that if I need it, I'll give them 24 hours notice and if they fail to arrange accomodation in that time then I'll go ahead and arrange it myself. This is because getting hold of the claims handler is extremely difficult. He even had an "out of office" email up at one point claiming that he was on holiday for 3 weeks, and admitted that he'd put it up to delay other complainants. I've also made it clear that the drying company is also outside of any negotiated claim and that the cash settlement will only cover what's in the final spec of works and bill of materials. I wouldn't have thought that Axa/Crawford & Co. would have a duty to reveal the loss adjuster's quote, however (correct me if I'm wrong on this), but they have a duty to restore my bathroom and your kitchen to the state that it was in prior to the incident, so any cash settlement that you do agree must cover these costs. Just be careful that you're 100% sure that it will before signing anything.

For the record, I spent 18 months of my life taking my complaint about my executive pension plan to:- 1. TPAS 2. FOS 3. Independent Assessor 4. FSA 5. John McFall, Treasury Select Committee 6. My MP All of the above hindered my attempts to get justice. Eventually, I lodged a particular of claims with moneyclaim.gov.uk, and the pension company offered to settle within 2 weeks. I've now got a problem with an insurance company and have no intention of dealing with the corrupt FOS again.

There is compelling evidence of FOS bias against consumers and severe delays at Financial Ombudsman Service - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The FOS is not required to adhere to the law, but to come up with a verdict which is fair and reasonable. This has been confirmed in a case taken to judicial review by an IFA. There isn't any appeal mechanism against an ombudsman's decision because it's felt that if there were, then IFAs and companies would also have to have the right of appeal and would drag out the cases longer than they currently do. I've read Lord Hunt's review which is more balanced than what I was expecting considering he was appointed by the FOS. One thing I will take up with him is his comment that Mr Michael Barnes CBE, the FOS Independent Assessor's appointment met the standards laid down by Lord Nolan's suggestions in to how public appointments should be conducted. As I understand it, Mr Barnes was a former member of the FOS board, and was initially appointed as the Independent Assessor in an interim role whilst they found a permanent candidate. That said Mr Barnes' role is confined to looking at the standard of service rather than an adjudicator/ombudsman decisions. Given that there are severe delays in the service, one wonders why, if he's truly independent, his annual report paints such a glowing picture of the FOS If you are owed more than £1000, say, I'd definitely take your case to the small claims court rather than the FOS. At least the judge won't have a financial services background. The service is quite cheap ( The problem is how do you effectively reform dodgy public bodies? Power corrupts and most people don't have the time/inclination to ensure that it doesn't.

Good luck with the FOS. I've got no experience of taking a bank charges case to them, but my pension charges case took 21 months to be decided by the ombudsman. The FOS, may be free, but they are a private limited company financed and managed by members of the financial services industry. Their judgements are opinions which do not need to be bound by English law. The European Parliament have recently ratified a report in to the manner in which Equitable Life investors were dealt with which heavily criticises the FSA and FOS. European Parliament - News - Press service - Background - European Parliament to vote on findings of Equitable Life inquiry At the very least, the FOS should highlight it's manner of funding and background of board members, rather than claiming that it's a fair and impartial service. our board The current board members are a mix of ex-financial services directors and government cronies Logically, the best means of ensuring impartiality is the jury system i.e. people are selected at random and serve for a short period of time. The 2nd best is a judge who, although, serving for a long period of time covers a broad range of law and is, therefore, less susceptible to pressure from a particular industry. The worst kind is the various ombudsmen schemes, were the ombudsmen are selected by the industry which they are supposed to police. The UK politicial system won't change the current sham any time soon, however, as the UK economy is dependent to a heavy extent on finanical services.

Don't bother with the FOS. They are a private limited company financed by the financial services industry. You may as well ask the bank's lawyers for an adjudication. The European Parliament has widely condemned the UK's financial services regulators:- European Parliament - News - Press service - Info - Equitable Life final report says compensate the victims and improve EU lawmaking