appealing against FOS decision - pls help!

[tommo8]

Hi Dear,

 

good day 2 u. Hope you are all well. I am sure with your expertise i will be able to make further inroads against FOS adjudicator's appeal on this matter.

 

I am hoping you can assist and advise me on this to make a final decision to appeal against the FOS decision on accept their £150 offer.

 

Kindly pls c below letter from FOS:

 

*

Dear Mr Tom,

 

your complaint about Barclays Bank Plc

 

Thank you for talking to me today. As promised, l am writing to set out my understanding of your complaint and to let you know where I am with it.

 

 

my role and how our service works

l am here to give an independent opinion on your complaint. That means that l will look at everything that you and Barclays' send us, weigh up what has happened and then offer my

own opinion on how l think this complaint should be resolved.

 

my understanding of your complaint

From your correspondence, this complaint is about the problems that you have had after Barclays closed your account and registered information to the CIFAS database following you falling victim to a job [problem].

 

You told me that Barclays delays in removing the information recorded on the CIFAS database caused you significant distress and inconvenience and that you have had problems with trying to open a current account since.

 

 

my thoughts

 

Barclays has confirmed that it removed the all information that it recorded to Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System (CIFAS) was removed on 10 February 2014. Barclays has said that this is the only information that it recorded about your account to this (or indeed any) agency as a result of the account closure.

 

l cannot say why you are still having problems obtaining a current account from another company as Barclays has removed the information that it recorded to CIFAS and as far as

far as I can see your credit file remains clear of any involvement by Barclays.

 

However, Barclays accepts that it is clear that this marker was still showing for roughly a month longer than it should have been and that this caused you significant problems.

 

 

what Barclays has offered

In view of the delays, Barclays would like to offer further compensation to fully settle the complaint.

 

 

Barclays has offered to:

Pay you a further £I50 to acknowledge the distress and inconvenience that it has caused (bringing the total offered to £300).

 

 

At this stage, I think that this is a reasonable offer. However, l would welcome your comments.

 

 

If you accept the offer, please sign the enclosed settlement form and return it to me. On the other hand, if you do not feel able to accept the offer, please let me know, so that l can consider any further points. "

 

In our leaflet, your complaint and the ombudsman, we explain about your right to ask the ombudsman to review your complaint — as the final stage in our process. l look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible — and in any event by 30th May 20I4.

 

Please let me know now if you plan to reply fully but do not think you will be able to meet that deadline.

 

Yours sincerely

*end

 

The FOS guy called me on this Wednesday and ask me what amount of compensation/level I was looking for... to which I said I do not know...whilst discussing about the complain.

Today I receive this letter/offer from them.

 

I had made an appeal against Barclays offer of £150 because I knew they were getting away with it. And justifying my reasons as below when appealing FOS.

 

**

 

Below are some of reasons I had gone to the FOS:

 

1) the maladministration and negligence of the misplacement of my important letters (royal mail deliveries), after it had been signed for and received by the Barclays personnel as indicated by the tracking receipts,

2) The excessive delay and length of time it had taken Barclays

to remove my CIFAS; it was only removed on February 2014

and final confirmation received on 9th March; when all

information was received and available for the team at

Barclays on 03rd January,

3) Prior to CIFAS entry in 2013, I had been successful in

opening a current & savings a/c with Barclays, with my previous reputation as a consumer in 2013. This in fact, after I had been abroad for a long time and not been operating any a/c's in UK for almost 10 years.

And now, my difficulty in opening a current a/c or business,

even after the CIFAS had been removed on XXXXX Feb

(my latest refusal of current a/c on XXXXX February),

is proving that my reputation as a Consumer has been badly

tarnished and damaged compared to the Consumer reputation

before CIFAS entry,

 

(looking at my credit file I have NO adverse credit history.. as i had been from away from the UK for almost 10 years.. and on the closed barclays a/c on creditfile.. it says 0.. 'zero' .. which means the a/c has been closed successfully). Though to this day I have not been able open a/c current a/c with facilities.)

4) The amount of time (almost 65 -75 hours) and effort, I have spent on painstakingly putting together and drafting documents to Barclays bank through internet researching, public forums discussions, getting lawful advice, analysis and thinking on how to best handle this issue when dealing with Barclays.

5) The amount expenses I have incurred through this process in royal mail signed for deliveries, almost 17-25 expensive telephone calls, scanning, emailing and faxing cost of documents that was sent to Barclays.

 

If not for my persistent calls to the Barclays support team during January, I would not been been able to bring this matter to what it is now. Only when my phone calls had raised my case to a level 3 status, I did receive a feedback from Toby on 08th Feb.

6) Loss of revenues, because I had not been able to operate a current or business a/c with my Forever Living Products International Distributors License over the last two and half months, due to the initiation of the CIFAS by Barclays. Pls see attached distribution licence document & purchase receipts. ( Also when i sopke to the FOS guy today... he said loss of opportunity with my business can cannot be taken into a/con this appeal)

7) The pain and suffering that has resulted from this extremely

difficult process has been very difficult to deal with and I'm still

reeling from the damage caused to me as a consumer.

My suffering has been sufficiently admitted and addressed by

Barclays, by their very own 'Regulated Poor Service' delivery

in their correspondence to me. I have attached these letters for

your attention.

Therefore I have been unable to accept their level of offer of

compensation and feel badly affected by the damage caused to

my reputation as a Consumer.

 

**

 

What is your take on this and advise on it? should I go further?

I know you have a lot of experience on these matters.

 

If I am appealing how I can make it the appeal a better one , thus I will be able to be better compensate.

Pls advise.

Here Below is the original appeal that I made against Barclays at FOS:

 

 

**

On XXXXXXXXX my Barclays bank current & savings accounts got

closed.. without any notice or a request of any clarification from the

consumer (me) on the matter of concern.

 

Following this, I had applied for a current a/c at Halifax XXXXXXX

and the application was rejected. Its only then I came to realise that

Barclays had initiated a CIFAS entry.

 

After a few days of shocks and upon speaking to my colleague and

to the police officer (on the reception) at XXXXXX police station,

I decided to clear my name. My friend on (XXXXXX) advised me to

report the issue to the bank. I then drew up an informative document

and met the Staff at XXXXX Barclays Branch on (XXXXXX) around

3.15 pm. The staff member had then contacted the customer support

at Barclays and explained the situation and the available proof of

documents on hand. I then decided to pursue the matter further with

Barclays complaints team in writing.

 

I also lodged a complaint with actionfraud.uk and was presented with a reference number which was disclosed to Barclays.

 

I wrote to The Customer Relationship Manager at XXXXX processing Centre on XXXXX Dec and presented him with all the information I had. Letter and documents sent to the bank were sent on royal mail

signed for 1st class service. The Bank then wrote back to me on XXXX 2014. mentioning the case was closed and requested more information if bank was to remove the CIFAS that had been initiated.

 

I then on XXXXXX 2014, sent them further information and the money transfer receipts that was requested.

 

By XXXXX, I still had not received any update and no further

action had been taken on this, even though the documents had been

signed & received by Barclays on 8th Jan. Alarmed, I call the

support team on XXXXXXXX, and had requested them the case

(XXXXXXXX) to be re-opened & escalated, which they did so.

 

 

Shocked again.. to see no further action had been taken as of 8.10

am on XXXXXX 2014, I wrote to XXXXX again and sent him

copy of alI correspondence that I had sent him on 6th of Jan through

royal mail signed for 1st class.

 

Still no response. Not even a phone call with an update.

 

Expecting a response from Barclays, I kept calling the Barclays

support team again and again, to see whether anything has been

done about the CIFAS entry, because by now I had supplied all

evidence they had requested.

 

On the phone, whenever I called, the support team kept telling me,

that they were waiting for someone to work on the case. I asked them whether they can confirm receipt, of my last two recorded deliveries,to which I was told, that 'they may have received it by now and that these were in the process to be scanned into their support system'.

 

I felt something was not right here... thus kept digging.

 

The royal mail tracking confirmed that both set of letters & documents had been signed & received, by the Barclays personnel on 08th Jan and 16th Jan respectively.

 

Thus as pointed above, Barclays had received them, though nothing

had been done about it, because they couldn’t find these documents.

It had been lost or displaced by maladministration and negligence by

Barclays.

 

 

Subsequently, the above fact was admitted and confirmed by

Senior Case Manager at Barclays on 8th Feb 2014, because he had explained what had happened and requested me a copy of the both the letters on email and proof of royal mail posting on fax.

 

He admitted and apologized for the above negligence and delay

on my matter. I had then sent him both letters (sent on 06 Jan &

15 Jan respectively), and proof of both royal mail tracking receipts

for these.

 

I did these on the same day. Subsequently the CIFAS was removed

on 10th Feb.

 

 

I thought things would be 'ok' by now, but only got awoken up again.

 

 

During the time of CIFAS and after the removal of it, I had applied to

 

 

 

• XXXXX (once during CIFAS) and
  
• XXXXXX (once during CIFAS) and
  (once after CIFAS removed on XXXX Feb)
  

 

 

to open a current/business a/c to operate my business of XXXXX products license. I had been trying to open a current a/c or business a/cto set up this business as sole trader since the Barclays a/c closure, and had been experiencing difficulties in opening one due to to the CIFAS.

 

 

By now the whole affair with Barclays had become very wearisome and I once again had raised all these concerns [inability to open a current a/c due to side effects of the CIFAS even after its removal], with XXXX where he had assured earlier on, that he will look into if I had any issues with rejection a current a/c opening and requested that I would notify if such was the case.

 

 

On XXXX Feb my application for a current a/c at XXXX was turned down. And I did report the matter to XXXX and had asked him to take remedial actions to solve this recurring 'turned downs'.

 

 

After further telephone conversations and email correspondences, I finally received a page of letter of 'pathetic nature' (apologies for my language here)as below along with a cheque for £150 from Barclays on dated XXXXXXXth Feb.

 

 

I wish to bring to your notice here, that on this instance of correspondence from Barclays dated XXXX, I ONLY RECEIVED the above 2 items(1 single page letter & cheque was received) and no mention of any other issues had been raised with Toby had been addressed.

 

 

I was very very upset about this final response and was unable to accept, the offer/final decision from Barclays on this matter.

 

 

I immediately drew up my dissatisfaction of this decision and notified Senior Case Manager at Barclays on email on XXXX March (as below) along with proof of my purchase of the XXXX Products License to make them understand the issues I had been facing because of the CIFAS initiation.

 

 

I then sent a copy of the email & along with license, to XXXX, on the same day through royal mail signed for delivery, 03rd March for a further review of their final decision on this matter.

 

 

I received a response from Barclays on this on XXXX,

 

 

1) with one letter dated

11) and copy of another 2 page letter 'providing explanation of CIFAS

and other concerns raised', which I should have received

[but which I did not receive] on 20th March, along with the letter & cheque I had received.

 

 

Thus once again only upon my complaint on 03rd March, I had then received the detailed explanation of CIFAS removal.

 

 

I have been very concerned all along, with the service that I had been receiving from Barclays, ever since the my a/c's closure incident, and it had proved to be right. Right from the start I intuitively felt alarm bells ringing.

 

 

1) the maladministration and negligence of the misplacement of my important letters (royal mail deliveries), after it had been signed for and received by the Barclays personnel as indicated by the tracking receipts,

 

 

2) The excessive delay and length of time it had taken Barclays

to remove my CIFAS; it was only removed on 10th February

and final confirmation received on 9th March; when all

information was received and available for the team at

Barclays on 8th January,

 

 

3) Prior to CIFAS entry in 2013, I had been successful in

opening a current & savings a/c with Barclays, with my previous reputation as a consumer in 2013. This in fact, after I had been abroad for a long time and not been operating any a/c's in UK for almost 10 years.

 

And now, my difficulty in opening a current a/c or business,

even after the CIFAS had been removed on XXXX Feb

(my latest refusal of XXXX current a/c on XXXXX February),

is proving that my reputation as a Consumer has been badly

tarnished and damaged compared to the Consumer reputation

before CIFAS entry,

 

 

4) The amount of time (almost 65 -75 hours) and effort, I have spent on painstakingly putting together and drafting documents to Barclays bank through internet researching, public forums discussions, getting lawful advice, analysis and thinking on how to best handle this issue when dealing with Barclays.

 

 

5) The amount expenses I have incurred through this process in royal mail signed for deliveries, almost 17-25 expensive telephone calls, scanning, emailing and faxing cost of documents that was sent to Barclays.

 

If not for my persistent calls to the Barclays support team during January, I would not been been able to bring this matter to what it is now. Only when my phone calls had raised my case to a level 3 status, I did receive a feedback from Toby on 08th Feb.

 

 

6) Loss of revenues, because I had not been able to operate a current or business a/c with my Products License over the last two and half months, due to the initiation of the CIFAS by Barclays. Pls see attached distribution licence document & purchase receipts.

 

 

7) The pain and suffering that has resulted from this extremely

difficult process has been very difficult to deal with and I'm still

reeling from the damage caused to me as a consumer.

My suffering has been sufficiently admitted and addressed by

Barclays, by their very own 'Regulated Poor Service' delivery

in their correspondence to me. I have attached these letters for

your attention.

 

 

Therefore I have been unable to accept their level of offer of

compensation and feel badly affected by the damage caused to

my reputation as a Consumer.

 

 

Thus I have reach out to you find rightful justice on this matter. I am confident a justified solution can be reached through you, both in compensation and a repair of my reputation as a consumer that which existed, prior to the CIFAS entry.

 

 

I am looking forward to your PROMPT solution and reply.

Thank you.

**end of letter to FOS **

 

PLS HELP.

 

Tks

tom

Edited May 16, 2014 by tommo8

[Klandestine]

After Barclays closed your account (and whilst the CIFAS marker was still there) which bank did you try to open another account with?

 

After the CIFAS marker was removed which bank did you try to open another account with?

 

Now that the CIFAS marker has been removed you can't hold Barclays responsible if another bank will not give you a bank account.

 

I think £300 is more than reasonable for the distress and inconvenience.

If you feel as though they should be covering the cost of phone calls etc. then first of all it would be helpful to detail these costs and calculate a figure. When the FOS spoke to you about this, you had no idea of how much "compensation" you were after - they can't read your mind so it looks as though they've had to guess what you might find reasonable.

[tommo8]

Before CIFAS -

 

1) bank A

2) bank B

 

After CIFAS -

 

1) Bank B

 

I take your point. And i appreciate your comment. And further I may be wrong about FOS.

 

I can prove to you CIFAS did have an effect before/after.

 

During CIFAS I tried to open a basic a/c bank B. which got refused.

After CIFAS this basic a/c was successfully opened with bank B.

 

I have NO ADVERSE CREDIT HISTORY.

 

Before CIFAS I had successfully opened a current a/c with Barclays itself. After CIFAS

I still seem to have an issue with opening a current a/c.

 

And you think Barclays cant be held responsible?

 

Well can you prove it?

 

Provide facts.

 

What you think is fair... its you own judgment. And that's not mine.

 

I don't feel the same way... u do...

 

because you didn't go through .. what i went thorough..

 

My humble request is - what is you best advice

 

1) Going further with the appeal? OR

2) Not?

 

If option 1, then what's best advice you could offer?

Any more insights on how i could be better compensated?

 

thank you for your time, effort & energy. Constructive comments/ideas are most welcome.

 

with appreciation

tom

[citizenB]

You pretty much have to hold the FOS hand and walk them through your complaint through to resolution.

 

Your complaint is a little all over the place, whilst you have pointed out the problems Barclay's action caused, you have provided no idea on how you would like the issue resolved. If you were taking this to court, you would need to specify what your losses are and what compensation you felt was necessary to put this to bed.

 

I suspect you need to do this with the FOS as well.

 

I would suggest you work out exactly what this has cost you to date and what you would find acceptable. If you look on the FOS website, you will find some examples of how the FOS look at and resolve complaints and the level of compensation they suggest for various scenarios.

 

When I made a complaint on behalf of OH in respect of a Bank's poor behaviour, I estimated the cost of my time, actual costs.. postage/stationary/printer inks etc was around £600.00. I dont think you can really put a cost on the stress that a body suffers. The complaint took nearly 3 years to resolve . During that time the FOS actually managed to lose all the paperwork I had sent them so it had to be copied again!! I eventually insisted it be escalated to the Ombudsman and the "compensation" figure was £500.00.

 

Unless you can come up with a figure and substantiate it, I doubt you will be offered more than what has already been offered.

[tommo8]

Thank you.

 

Highly appreciated.

[citizenB]

[Klandestine]

Before CIFAS -

 

1) bank A

2) bank B

 

After CIFAS -

 

1) Bank B

 

I take your point. And i appreciate your comment. And further I may be wrong about FOS.

 

I can prove to you CIFAS did have an effect before/after.

 

During CIFAS I tried to open a basic a/c bank B. which got refused.

After CIFAS this basic a/c was successfully opened with bank B.

 

I have NO ADVERSE CREDIT HISTORY.

 

Before CIFAS I had successfully opened a current a/c with Barclays itself. After CIFAS

I still seem to have an issue with opening a current a/c.

 

And you think Barclays cant be held responsible?

 

Well can you prove it?

 

Provide facts.

 

What you think is fair... its you own judgment. And that's not mine.

 

I don't feel the same way... u do...

 

because you didn't go through .. what i went thorough..

 

My humble request is - what is you best advice

 

1) Going further with the appeal? OR

2) Not?

 

If option 1, then what's best advice you could offer?

Any more insights on how i could be better compensated?

 

thank you for your time, effort & energy. Constructive comments/ideas are most welcome.

 

with appreciation

tom

 

Now that the CIFAS marker has been removed, Barclays are not responsible if you are still not able to open a bank account elsewhere.

Banks will have additional criteria which takes into account more than just not being listed on the CIFAS Fraud Database. For example, some people get turned away because of a LACK of a credit history, being associated with certain countries etc.

 

I would suggest that you do go further with your complaint.

I think the current offer of £300 is more than reasonable for the stress and inconvenience.

But, like citizenB, I would also try and estimate your actual costs and then suggest to whoever is dealing with your case at the FOS that this figure is taken into account.

[tommo8]

Thanks again.

 

When I discussed with the FOS person,

 

1) that I had to be compensated for the 'loss of opportunity' - (because i had purchased a licensed for selling products before my a/c got closed).... I was told that FOS does not consider ' 'loss of opportunity'

 

but here is what the FOS technical notes say:

 

Loss of opportunity for the consumer to make other investment arrangements because of the financial business's delay.

 

financial-ombudsman.org.uk

publications/technical_notes/distress-and-inconvenience

 

2) I mentioned on my complaint that i had spent almost 60-70 hours of my time on this matter ( I have proof of documents that I had put together for the bank apart from my postage, printing costs and almost 40 pages of A4, about 15-20 phone calls). And thus I had to be compensated for my time as mentioned in the above link.

 

allowance for consumer's time

 

In awarding compensation, we sometimes make allowance for the time the consumer needed to spend to put things right - though not usually for the consumer's time in dealing with us. This will normally be at a modest rate (around £50 to £100 a day, and not more than £10 per hour).

 

Again the FOS person didn't seems to know, what I was talking about and he asked me where i found this information. Its on their site.

 

3) how a business might damage a consumer's reputation

A business may damage a consumer's reputation in various ways. For example, damage may arise because the business's actions resulted in:

 

• a third party being misinformed about the consumer's circumstances (for example, their creditworthiness); or
  

So the CIFAS did affect my reputation as a consumer.

4) how we assess any compensation

 

When we assess whether we should tell the business to pay compensation for damage to reputation, and the amount of such compensation if appropriate, we apply similar considerations to those for distress and inconvenience payments. We are also likely to consider:

 

• how widely the information was made available;
  
• the nature of the information involved;
  
• the impact the information had; and
  
• the consumer's previous reputation.
  

The amount of compensation for damage to reputation may be significant where specific damage can be identified. In addition to telling the business to pay compensation we may, where appropriate, consider requiring the business to minimise the impact of its earlier actions (by, for example, ensuring that credit-reference agency records are corrected).

 

Although CIFAS does not get loaded to the credit file. It does get checked before the bank access a consumer credit file for reference. And if there is an entry, then that's it. Before whatever credit file holds does not matter.

 

So at the time of my CIFAS this did happen. Thus affecting my reputation as a consumer.

 

Any more thoughts on this?

Edited May 17, 2014 by tommo8

[citizenB]

tommo, these are the things that you need to point out to them and if possible, provide a link to their own webiste advice !

 

I didnt realise that you had actually spoken to someone.. I would have advised against this. The first tier adjudicators are not better than telephone customer service guys.. their remit is to dissuade you from pursuing your claim .. IMHO !

 

Did you record your telephone conversations ?

[tommo8]

no. I didn't. it never occurred to me.

 

But as u've suggested I will point these out in my appeal letter.

 

I also did get feeling that this FOS guy had not fully taken into a/c everything that I had pointed in the complaint.

 

No worries, I will make sure he does really read what i have to say this time around. Because they will have to deal with this according to the info on their site.

 

And I feel I've got a strong case on it.

[tommo8]

The initial story on this matter is here:

 

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?413257-Barclays-account-closure-no-notice-given&p=4427207&viewfull=1#post4427207

Edited May 23, 2014 by slick132
added proper link

[tommo8]

Thank you for all the contribution.

 

With appreciation

tom

[citizenB]

Did Barclays ever say WHY they decided to plonk you on the CIFAS hit list ?

[tommo8]

not in line with their a/c agreement.

[tommo8]

Hi citizenB,

 

i have sent u a PM.

 

pls see.

[citizenB]

Thanks tommo, have read and responded

[tommo8]

cheers.

 

will keep u posted on final outcome. appreciating all your support.

[citizenB]