We share our knowledge and experience of handling financial disputes to help businesses resolve complaints fairly and effectively.
This page sets out our case-handling process, including information for financial businesses about hot work with us and what information to send us during our investigation.
1. We receive a complaint from your customer
Once you’ve sent your final response to your customer – or the time to do so has passed – they can bring their complaint to us.
When we receive a complaint from your customer, we’ll check you’ve had a chance to deal with it first and that it’s something we can investigate. If you think the complaint is outside our jurisdiction, please tell us as soon as possible and provide any relevant supporting details or documentation. You can read a summary of our jurisdiction and the information we need to see or look at the full Dispute Resolution (DISP) rules in the FCA handbook.
We may charge you a case fee. Our guidance on case fees sets out more detail about how and when we charge fees.
2. We'll ask you for information about the complaint
Send us any information you think is important to the case. We may ask for specific documents or details and, if we do, we’ll let you know what we need by when.
You can use our online tool to find out more about what to send us, we've set out the typical information we would expect to receive in some of the more common areas of complaint we see. We may ask for further information or documents, depending on the circumstances of the case, our case handlers and our ombudsmen will determine what information they need to see in each case.
If there’s a reason you can’t send us the information by the date we’ve asked for it, it is important that you let us know straight away. If either party fails to provide information we have asked for in the time given in each case, we may proceed with out investigation and reach an initial assessment or a final decision on the information we do have.
In all cases, we will need a copy of the final response letter and a clear outline of your current position.
Our online portal, Ombudsman Connect for Business, allows you to:
- review case status and actions needed
- share updates and documents
- access data and insight
3. We'll investigate and tell you what we think
We’ll keep you updated throughout our investigation. We will look at all the information and individual circumstances of the complaint, taking into account relevant law, regulations and good practice.
Making an offer to proactively settle a complaint
Our proactive settlement scheme gives you the opportunity to make a new offer to resolve a complaint early on in our process – within 14 days of us informing you that a complaint has been moved to investigation.
You should send the offer and supporting evidence to us by replying to the email we send when we first set up the case. You can also email your investigator (if someone has been assigned to the case) or by using Ombudsman Connect for Business.
We’ll check whether the offer looks fair and in line with our approach, based on the information we have, before putting it to the consumer. It’s important to give us enough information to help us do this. This could range from details of a consumer’s financial losses on a case involving a scam to a detailed explanation about how a customer has been impacted by poor customer service.
If you decide to make an offer to resolve a complaint at this point and the consumer accepts it, this may count as a ‘proactively settled’ complaint.
Proactively settled complaints aren’t recorded as a change in favour of the consumer in our half-yearly complaints data.
More detail about this can be found in our scheme criteriaOpens in new window for proactively settled complaints.
While we’re dealing with the complaint
While we consider a complaint, you can continue to deal with your customer as normal. But if anything you do is relevant to the complaint, or you want to make an offer to resolve things, you should let us know.
We’re likely to recommend that you wait until we’ve finished investigating the complaint before you take any related legal action (such as proceedings to recover a debt). You should tell us about any action you’re thinking of taking.
Putting things right
Where we think you’ve treated your customer fairly, we’ll say so. But if we think they’ve lost out, we’ll explain why and what you need to do to put things right. Most complaints are resolved at this stage.
If you – or your customer – disagree with our case handler’s assessment, you can ask for the case to be referred to an ombudsman who will make a final decision.
If your customer accepts our final decision within the time given, it’s legally binding for both parties. You’ll have to do what the ombudsman has said to put things right. You should comply promptly with any award or direction that’s made.