The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) was forced to apologise to victims of defunct investment firm London Capital & Finance (LCF) after it mistakenly sent them a customer satisfaction survey.
Bondholders turned to social media to share their disappointment.
One said: “FSCS are causing LCF savers yet more stress. Questionnaires are being sent leading some to assume they are about to receive compensation, but it’s not the case.”
The lifeboat scheme admitted the survey was erroneously sent by a third party.
‘Not a scam’
The FSCS’ apology letter, seen by International Adviser, said: “We recently sent you a customer satisfaction survey via a third party, The Nursery. We’re deeply sorry, as we sent it in error. We apologise for any concern or confusion the email’s caused and want to confirm that the email came from us by mistake, and is not a scam.
“We issue these surveys periodically to help us improve our customer service. We only send the surveys to customers who’ve submitted an application. Obviously, we should not have included your details and unfortunately, you received a survey in error.
“Please ignore this survey. You don’t need to do anything at all at the moment. The most current information is on the LCF page and it is regularly updated.
“We are still reviewing documents and don’t currently need anything else. Our aim is assess claims without the need for an application form. If we need anything from you, we will let you know what the next steps are.
“We’re deeply sorry, as we sent it in error. We apologise for any concern or confusion the email’s caused and want to confirm that the email came from us by mistake, and is not a scam.”
Legal challenge
LCF victims have already taken legal action against the lifeboat scheme.
They started a crowdfunding campaign, to challenge the scheme’s decision to compensate only 159 investors out of the over 11,600 bondholders, for the time being.
