Acknowledgement: We will acknowledge the receipt of your complaint in writing within 5 business days of its receipt, confirming the facts of the case as explained by you and understood by us. This will form the basis of our investigation so we request you to intimate us of any misunderstandings as quickly as possible to avoid any confusions later.
We will provide you with the name or job title of the person who will be handling the investigation of your complaint. The letter will also contain the details of our Complaints Procedure and of your right to go to the Financial Ombudsman if dissatisfied with our end ruling.
Initial or Holding Response: We will send a written response including the details of the investigation and any offer to resolve the matter within 4 weeks of the original complaint. The letter aims to come to a satisfactory resolution of the complaint.
If you do not reply within eight weeks, we will treat the complaint as closed.
However, if you remain dissatisfied with the firm's response, you should quickly contact the person who is handling your complaint to explain the reasons of your dissatisfaction and ask for a further review. A member of the Senior Management Team will look into the matter again and hopefully this will resolve the complaint fully.
If we are unable to provide any response within four weeks of the receipt of the complaint, we will issue a Holding Response, which will seek to inform the complainant of the reasons why we are unable to give a response and an indication as to when they will next hear from us.
Final Response: If you are unhappy with the outcome, you should indicate your response as quickly as possible. We will then send you a letter confirming that this is our Final Response and the end of our Internal Complaints Procedure. This response will include the summary of the complaint and the details of any offer a firm is making to resolve the matter.
It also informs the complainant that he may now refer his complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service and must do so within six months of the receipt of the final response. We will enclose a copy of Financial Ombudsman Service's leaflet along with the final response.
The Financial Ombudsman Service: If you have received a final response from the firm and you are unhappy with the end result or 8 weeks have elapsed since making your complaint and the firm has not responded, you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service who are there to resolve individual disputes between consumers and financial firms such as banks, building societies, insurance companies and financial advisers. The FOS is an independent organisation which decides complaints impartially on its merits. They will not consider the complaint until we have had the chance to deal with it. You have then six months from the date of receipt of the final response to refer the complaint to the Ombudsman.
Further details are contained in the Financial Ombudsman Service's leaflet entitled 'Your Complaint and the Ombudsman' a copy of which will be provided with the final response.