Consumer complaints about financial products and services providers soared in the past year, stretching resources of the Financial Ombudsman Service to the limit as it had to both deal with caseload and try to ensure its messages got out properly through the hundreds of public meetings attended by its staff
Unsurprisingly, mortgage endowments made up more than half the 98,000 new complaints lodged – itself a 57% increase on the previous year’s figures. The number of endowment complaints jumped to 57,917 from 13,570 in 2002/3, and this area now accounts for half the FOS’ workload. Walter Merricks, chief ombudsman, warns in the report that the number of endowment mis-selling complaints may increase again this year. ”Before the volume of complaints stabilises, we may see the number of mortgage endowment cases rise attain, as consumers respond to specific warnings about imminent deadlines...
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