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Complaints we can help with
We can help with complaints about most kinds of financial products and services provided in or from the UK – from bank accounts, debt collection and payday loans to insurance and mortgages.
Find out more about our approach to complaints about specific types of financial product or service by selecting the area you’d like to read about from the list below:
- Home, travel, motor, wedding and other types of insurance
- Bank accounts, payments, cards, cash machines and other banking services
- Fraud and scams
- Mortgages including early repayment charges, valuations and equity
- Loans and other types of credit like car finance or debt and repayment problems
- Investments
- Pension and annuities
- Payment protection insurance (PPI)
- Other complaints – including complaints involving the impact of Covid-19, economic and domestic abuse or power of attorney.
For consumers
An introduction to the role of the Financial Ombudsman Service, the complaints we can help with and how to make a complaint.
We’re a free service set up by Parliament to resolve complaints about financial businesses, for example banks or insurance companies. If we decide you’ve been treated unfairly, we have the power to put things right.
Information
Recent travel disruption
Many people in the UK have recently experienced travel disruption due to flight cancellation and delays. If you have experienced delay or disruption, you should first contact your travel provider, tour operator and/or airline.
You can find more information on our website about how to claim compensation, or a refund if your flight is cancelled. You can also read our approach to the complaints we see about cancelled flight and delays.
To get an idea of whether your complaint is something we can help with before you send it to us, we’ll ask you some questions about some of the things we need to know upfront before you send us a complaint. You can do this online, using our complaint checker. If your complaint sounds like something we can help with, it will tell you how to make a new complaint using our online form. Or read through the information on this page first, to find out more about us and our role.
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Complaints we can’t help with
There may be some occasions where we can’t help with a complaint.
Sometimes we can’t help because your complaint should be dealt with by a different organisation. Or certain time limits might affect whether we can or can't help. There may be other reasons – for example, we won’t usually look into a problem that’s been decided by a court, or one that we’ve looked at already.
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Who can complain?
We can help a range of people with a complaint, about financial products or services. Broadly we can look at complaints from individual customers, micro-enterprises and small businesses, and some charities and trusts.
Generally, we can help with complaints about businesses that provide retail financial products and services in or from the UK. It doesn’t matter what your nationality is or where you live.
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Time limits
Time limits apply when making a complaint. So it’s best to take action as soon as you realise there’s a problem.
We might not be able to help if:
- what you’re complaining about happened more than 6 years ago, and
- you complain more than 3 years from when you became aware (or should have become aware) that you had a reason to complain.
- and you’ll need to contact us within 6 months of the business’s final response.
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How do I make a complaint?
You need to contact the financial business you want to complain about first, and give them a chance to resolve things, before submitting your complaint to us. You need to tell them what's happened and how you want the problem put right. If you haven't done that yet, read our step by step guide to complaining.
The financial business has to give their final response to your complaint within 8 weeks at the most, depending on what you’re complaining about.
If you’re not happy with their response, or the business doesn't reply in time, you can bring your complaint to us. We’ll check it’s something we can deal with by asking a few questions about what happened, and if we think we can help we'll ask you to send us the details and we'll investigate.
Find out more
Are you a small business?
If you’re a small business (SME) and want to make a complaint to us, head to our dedicated small business website for more information about how we can help.
Need help with a claims management dispute?
We can also help with complaints about claims management companies (CMCs). If you have a complaint, or you’re a CMC dealing with a complaint, head to the Claims Management Ombudsman website for more information.