Sometimes when I’m very very bored, I look at financial ombudsman verdicts. This one was a doozy, a man complained to the ombudsman that his bank sent him an email when he was asleep. And he wasn’t happy with the £150 they gave him to say sorry. So he escalated it.

I like to think what kind of person has the time and energy to raise an ombudsman case for
something like this. And it would have cost the bank £650 for the complaint to be raised to them.

(The ombudsman isn’t a person Jeremy, it’s a toothless regulatory body made up of junior, and often very obliging, civil servants)

by fitzct

43 comments

  1. Go on then, now you have to share the source/link for the rest of us to enjoy?

  2. Wow. 

    I’m just impressed that this person for some unfathomable reason apparently leaves his phone on, connected, and with loud enough e-mail alerts to wake him; and yet the only thing that woke him was from the bank.

  4. I had to raise a complaint to the Ombudsman one time because my 5G phone couldn’t get 5G service and my carrier fobbed me off.

    I don’t mean “I barely ever see 5G”. I mean – I never once got 5G, even smack in the middle of a 5G coverage area.

    They awarded me a token amount after a drawn out process where they deemed that the fact that it had taken me a few months to raise the complaint to mean that it wasn’t actually important. I ended up using it to pay the cancellation fee on my carrier and moving to another one.

    Guess what? 5G suddenly worked on the same phone with the new carrier.

    Tl;Dr – yes, the Ombudsman is toothless.

    (And yes, I realise that I am on a bit of a tangent as I know this post is about a silly Ombudsman complaint)

  5. The *ombudsman* isn’t a person, fitzct, it’s a toothless regulatory body made up of junior, and often very obliging, civil servants

  7. I can’t believe they gave him 150 quid just because he couldn’t figure out do not disturb 

  8. >I like to think what kind of person has the time and energy to raise an ombudsman case for something like this.

    Just think what type of person he’d be without being awoken by pesky emails all night long!

  9. Dingus needs to turn off email notifications and get in the habit of manually checking daily. 

  10. I found this utterly hilarious to read but then I thought to myself what if Mr. W was an elderly person or someone with a learning disability and felt really bad lol. I feel like I’m in an episode of Moral Maze haha.

  11. I once had a complaint sent in that the staples of the user manual were bad quality. The staples.

  12. I has a customer like that, the frozen Chicken dinner wasn’t like the picture, sliced meat not a leg. He also sent his wife back into the store to get a refund for his large, half eaten bag of lidl “snaks” as they were not like crisps, they were too hard/crunchy?

  13. £150 for a late email, you say?

    *checks through her inbox for potential paydays*

  15. You’ll see more of this, especially with AI.

    I had an issue with some headphones I bought, the company was giving me the run around, but after a couple of emails I ended up just pasting the convo in with Chat GPT and gave it a bit of backstory for context. It then guided me through the process with the ombudsman, crafted every single email, I got my headphones fixed and £200 as a good will gesture – basically paid for my pro subscription of Chat GPT for 90% of the year.

    I literally didn’t do anything aside from copy/paste emails and hit send. I reckon it took me about 20 mins time overall despite it going on for about 9 weeks.

  16. I know it’s not the point of the post but ombudsman employees are not civil servants.

  18. I always have to hold back a laugh when customers threaten to go to the Ombudsman when they’ve failed a credit check for a phone contract

  20. I had a complaint just like this in my old job, how we laughed. He didn’t get anything. What’s the point of giving him compensation when you’re realistically definitely not actually going to change how automated emails work?

  21. Was having trouble getting a refund for some flight tickets that never arrived, travel agent was trying to run off with the money. Called bank to do a charge back, barclays tried giving me the run around too. Claimed against barclays with the ombudsman (knew thered be no point trying anything against some shitty saudi based travel agent) and finally got the £900 back. There’s my ombudsman success story.

  22. If they just took the money and moved on, it’s a fair grift. I’m aware of a few people who make a fair bit of money through complaints and a fait bit more through filing a legal claim (they have to have a genuine issue even if exaggerated). Adds up to a fair few grand a year.

    I kept complaining about my local coop, it was atrocious as they never updated the price labels, complained about 10 times, getting £20 voucher each time. They seem to have become fed up and installed digital pricing on everything.

  23. I used to work for FOS. A) those who work there aren’t civil servants, and B) I would have rejected this complaint out of hand because the man could have simply put his phone on silent or left it in a different room. I’d have told him to take his £150 and run cos he absolutely wasn’t getting any more (I wouldn’t have recommended any money for this nonsense)

    On the other hand, when a financial services provider had genuinely fucked up, I made them pay every penny to put a person back in the position they should have been in AND generous distress and inconvenience. When it’s clear a business has massively fucked up, it should never end up at the FOS, they should just pay up.

  24. Instructions unclear

    Complained about my bank to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman

  25. Worked for the energy and telecoms aspect of ombudsman. Hated it. Answering queries. Opening cases and responding.

    Some horrible messages were sent to us and also crap to see some of the situations people were because of the companies. Had mothers calling up late in the evening because their power was cut off and had nothing. All I could do was guide them to another organistsion.

  26. Case like this, there is a good chance they won’t have to pay the £650 (think it’s more now by the way, possibly £950) as the bank has been extraordinarily generous with the £150 and clearly more than patient with him given they’re not just closing his account and is an obviously vexatious referral

  27. A good 20 years ago, a woman walked into the automatic doors at work and slipped and fell backwards, breaking their ankle. They tried suing the store for £30k.

    Got thrown out of court, but it hung over us for 18 months and lots of threats from her solicitor and constant offers for settlements. Crazy stuff.

  28. Huh ? I’m surprised the ombudsman even took up the case ? They would normally review complaint submissions and determine the legitimacy and whether it meets the need for further escalation. This sounds like a complete waste of the ombudsman time and resources and the complainant should be fined.

  30. I deal with telecoms complaints at CISAS. Whilst not the whole claim, one client wrote three paragraphs to request a 15p refund for an SMS he’d been charged for 6 years earlier.

  31. Wait what?

    £150 for being disturbed?

    I’ll be very happy with that

  32. That ombudsman is a great tool. A car dealership sold us a warranty which turned out to be useless – and repeatedly fobbed me off when I asked for a refund.

    One mention of the FOS and they buckled immediately.

  33. Never underestimate how much the boomer abhors the slightest inconvenience. Yes, there’s no age stated, but I guarantee you from personal experience that the complainant is a boomer.

  34. You’ve awakened something in me. Already bookmarked the decisions listing.

  35. I work in complaints for a bank and this sort of shit is my day to day. People are nuts.

  36. I’m not the only one who does that!!! BROTHER, I found you!! 

  37. I’ve never been awarded anything like this even when I’ve actually had a true reason to complain. E.g. my number is currently attached to someone else’s Vodafone account and they’ve refused to even remove it, let alone award compensation, despite several phone calls, citing “data protection”.

  38. But still, it’s provided us with some comic relief, so every cloud and all 🤣

  39. Meanwhile I’ve got stuck with the financial ombudsman who is as much use as a chocolate teapot and believes that BMW Financial Services have done everything they claim in time despite me providing hard proof that they aren’t doing it.

    Things like taking £13K out of my bank 12 months early, continuing to try and take £350+ monthly direct debit despite it being previously paid in a lump sum. Its like banging my head against a brick wall dealing with both of them.

  40. OK no but this is such a bugbear for me. What is it with people complaining when you message them late at night/early in the morning when modern smartphones have a do not disturb function?!

    Look, I have a baby and (another) full time job. The only time I have time to message you back (except when I’m commenting on Reddit during my loo breaks – don’t judge) is at 4am when I’m feeding the baby and desperately trying to stay awake. Frankly, you’re lucky to even get a response. 😂

  41. This guy’s got money to be banking with Investec. Look at the criteria to be a customer in the UK. I would also be upset if I only got £150 😁

  42. I came here to take the piss out of you but I see that you are, in fact, the one taking the piss.

    Well played

  43. Excuse me I think you’ll find they are now wokely referred to as “ombudspeople”

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