Thousands of consumers are waiting for years for their complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) to be resolved.
A Freedom of Information request by British newspaper The Telegraph, seen by International Adviser, showed that many savers are having to put up with long periods of time before their cases are decided on.
As of 28 May 2021, the Ombudsman had 166,031 ongoing investigations.
Of these:
- 112,833 had been open for more than three months;
- 61,967 for more than six months;
- 16,884 for more than a year; and,
- 3,882 for more than two years.
According to the FOS, the backlog of cases has been caused by the impact of the pandemic. On its website the Ombudsman said: “It’s taking longer than we’d like to allocate cases to our case handlers for investigation.
“We’re working to improve waiting times and will contact you when once a case handler has been assigned to your case. We’d be grateful if you could avoid contacting us for an update, unless your circumstances have changed.”
