I really don’t know if it’s the recession or the general services of financial companies, but it seems that in the recent times the complaints against the companies has gone up multi-fold. According to Financial Services Authority reports that showed the trends from 2006-2008, poor customer service and exorbitant fees of finance companies seem to be the main areas against which customers are grousing about. The lending sectors of the financial industry, the banks and the lending agencies seem to be the ones facing the brunt of the customer’s ire. The rise in complaints against these sectors is a shocking 122 % in the last three years. The high charge complaints have increased by 259 % and customer service complaints have risen by 71 % in the same period.
Other complaints include credit card complaints that have risen from 73,500 to 151,000. The complaints against cash ISAs has increased four times from 8,700 to 39,259. Complaints in the current account rose by 46 %. The other area where there was a rise in complaints was pure insurance mostly of the general insurance type.
Dan Waters, director FSA, opines, “Publishing this information will mean that consumers and firms can now see how many complaints the industry receives and how it deals with them.” Yes I do agree with Dan fully. A report of this kind, will surely serve as an eye opener to these financial institutions. This report gives a clear idea to the customers about the functioning of the financial companies . If you are the one having a complaint, remember that you are not the only one having the complaint as a financial institution might try to impress upon you. There are lots like you in the present times and if financial institutions don’t learn a lesson from this and improve their customers services and lower their fees they have to prepare for packing up in a few days as customers will not take this anymore.
Phil Jones, a personal finance patron feels, “Financial firms simply aren’t treating consumers well enough and things must change if the industry is to rebuild its reputation.” People are angry and they are losing confidence on the financial institutions. Especially during the recession when financial institutions should be the first ones to pull out people from this crisis, their poor customer services are surely earning them a bad reputation.
A British Banker’s Association representative feels: “Put in context, the proportion of reportable complaints is still very small at 3.5 per thousand products held.” So does that mean that there are more unhappy people than this report has covered? If so then that is bad news. However this trend seems to have changed from the end of 2008 with only 10 % of customer complaints taking more than 8 weeks for getting resolved .Also more than 40 % of the resolutions were in favor of customers. This is the first report of the kind from FSA. I hope it becomes a regular feature so that finance companies know that they are getting exposed and they should change their ways.
Read further about this on Finance Markets.
A spokesperson for the British Bankers’ Association welcomed the figures and said: “Put in context, the proportion of reportable complaints is still very small at 3.5 per thousand products held.”
