Advisers heading off formal complaints
Advisers are tackling consumer complaints head on and resolving them before they get to the formal stage, says dispute resolution service Financial Services Complaints Ltd.
Friday, August 30th 2013, 7:27AM 
2 Comments
by Susan Edmunds
General manager Trevor Slater said it did receive complaints about financial advisers but they were at the lower end. “Most complaints are still against the small lenders and insurance companies are still providing us with a bit of work.”
He said most of the complaints about advisers related to replacement business, whether that was investment or insurance. “We do get complaints about advice to change to policies or investments that don’t provide the benefits that had been available previously.”
Commission clawback had also prompted concerns, he said. “Either insurance or mortgage brokers give advice to take a policy or product and then the person has to surrender it… we’ve had the odd complaint where the adviser has tried to claw back all the commission, which can be quite substantial.”
He said FSCL would look at the amount that we being clawed back in relation to the service provided. But he said if the number of complaints was compared to the number of transactions done by advisers, numbers were low.
The scheme has launched a programme called Give Us A Call, that aims to help solve issues before they turn into complaints. If a FSCL participant receives a complain, they can contact FSCL and get advice on how to resolve it before it became a dispute. The service is free.
Slater said advisers were already taking advantage of that. “Financial advice is all about relationships. For most advisers, when they get a complaint they get on and fix it so it’s not escalating. Most advisers sit down with the client and address their concerns, talking through the problem and looking for a resolution.”
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On 30 August 2013 at 11:56 am Amused said:
Advisers will look forward now to their dispute resolution membership levies reducing next year as organisations like FSCL realise that the flood of complaints they expected to receive have not and will not materialise. If the complaints against advisers aren’t there in the first place then the costs put on us to belong to these dispute resolution schemes need to be reflective of that. Otherwise we are just subsidising the travel insurance companies and small lenders who are obviously going to generate the bulk of consumer complaints.
It’s fine for FSCL to say they are a not-for-profit entity but any sufficiently large non-profit is likely to require a staff of paid full-time employees, managers, and directors. Indeed looking at FSCL’s annual report on their website for 2011/12 its shows FSCL staff and directors are doing very well thank you!
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Look at their reports and see how much money they are wasting justifying their existence.
I love this " If a FSCL participant receives a complain, they can contact FSCL and get advice on how to resolve it before it became a dispute. The service is free."
No! It is not free!! We are paying our membership fees for you to deal us!
Given that advisers are putting issues to bed without them escalating to FSCL, how about FSCL start cutting some staff and cutting our fees?!