Ombudsman names and shames Avant

Brendan Burgess

Founder
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The Ombudsman [broken link removed]. names Avant as the company with the most complaints upheld against it.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/irelan...ailing-to-comply-with-regulations-260110.html

Avant: 33
AIB: 28
BoI: 19

Shows the vulnerability of customers where the business is sold to a new user. Update: No it doesn't. All the complaints about Avant are in relation to PPI, so they preceded the takeover by Avant.

|substantiated | partly {br} substantiated
Avant|6|27
AIB|5|19
ptsb|5|7
Ulster Bank|3|12
BoI|3|11
New Ireland|3|2
Note 2: Where a complaint is partly upheld, it usually means that the substantive complaint has been set aside and in the main, a customer service issue has occurred.

Who are the good guys?

Fewer than 3 complaints substantiated against:

Standard Life
KBC
 
Is this the first time that organisations have been identified? I cannot understand why the Ombudsman redacts the names of the institutions in their published judgements/decisions, if they were properly on the customer's side they would.
 
It is very surprising how few complaints about mortgages have been upheld

AIB|3

BoI|2
BoSI|2

Danske|2
Ulster|1
KBC|0
ptsb|0
total|10


The ptsb figure might be misleading as they are appealing 4 or 5 cases to the High Court and Supreme Court and as a result, the Ombudsman has put these cases on hold. I have not come across a case where a complaint against KBC was upheld.

Brendan
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Shows the vulnerability of customers where the business is sold to a new user. Update: No it doesn't. All the complaints about Avant are in relation to PPI, so they preceded the takeover by Avant.
Click to expand...


I thought that too initially, that the complaints referred to MBNA really, but surely Avant should have dealt with the customers' complaints properly first day and not allowed it to escalate to the ombudsman?

The ombudsman only deals with complaints after a "final response" letter has issued from the service provider, meaning you have to go through all of their tiers of customer service first.
 
What's the point in the Ombudsman telling us a company had 3 or 5 complaints upheld against it... What is that in the context of...100/200/3000 complaints for that company ? Shouldn't there be some sort of real measure on it
 
Brendan Burgess said:
The ptsb figure might be misleading as they are appealing 4 or 5 cases to the High Court and Supreme Court and as a result, the Ombudsman has put these cases on hold. I have not come across a case where a complaint against KBC was upheld.

Brendan
Click to expand...

I have a complaint against the PTSB on hold, waiting on the result of their appeal to the supreme court.... Its been over 12months & id expect the waiting period to be extended...
 
Last edited:
Mrs Vimes.

In relation to Mbna/Avant .
1. Their tiers of customer service. You are put through a process that is slow,stalling , and ends up usually as a no. Avant/ Mbna and the rest know that our Impartial ? Ombudsman will only find 12% for customer as against in Uk were Ombudsman finds 78%.
2. Suggest read comments on Ombudsman/Central Bank/ PPI.in Ask About Money.
3. I cannot stress strongly enough that our Ombudsman service, Banks customer service , Central Banks lack of consumer focus, have enabled all bankers get
away with what i kindly call customer issues!
 
Mrs Vimes said:
I thought that too initially, that the complaints referred to MBNA really, but surely Avant should have dealt with the customers' complaints properly first day and not allowed it to escalate to the ombudsman?

.
Click to expand...

Good point.

The initial mis-selling was done by MBNA.

But it's fair to criticise Avant as they are not handling the complaints well.

Is Avant just running down the MBNA book or are they looking to develop their business in Ireland?


Brendan
 
Complaints handling by most (not all) Finance type businesses are at best poor . Just read threads on any contribution on Banking type isues in Ask About Money.
The conclusion can only be ,that Finance houses/Banks/ Mortgage companies etc know they will have minimal sanction for any incompetence etc.

Would any other type of industry get away with treating customers in the way Banks make a habit of?
I do not believe so.
Would any other type of industry be allowed to treat customers in the way Banks make a habit of?
I do not believe so.
 
I agree with Thefridge - Complaint volumes as a stand alone figure without any context are essentially meaningless.

I'd also wonder about the effectiveness of the name and shame policy being instructive for customer. In a market so lacking in competetition whether AIB has 7 complaints upheld and BOI 4 is hardly going to be the determining factor for a customer trying to decide which bank to use

The worrying statistic for me though is that 77% of complaints found in favour of the Financial Institution. I thought this to be worryingly high for a supposedly independent body and out of step with other jurisdictions where Ombudsman bodies are far more likely to find in favour of the consumer
 
Ombudsman says at Oireachtas Finance Committee that the format of his report is laid down in a SI.

He can't report for example

"We found against UB on the loss of tracker mortgages in the following circumstances"
 
Isn,t it great for Ombudsman types that they get a forum and a method to trump what are effectively meaningless statistics masquerading as meaning something?

As Gerryt picked up : Is it not worryiing that our (independent?) Ombudsman finds 77% of the time for Banks .
I would add that most people give up complaining long before Ombudsmans office ,
I would think most who go as far as our tame Ombudsman really feel they have a case.
 
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