FOS takes pride in its wordy wisdom
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In the latest issue of Ombudsman News retiring chief ombudsman Walter Merricks reflects on his years of service at the FinancialOmbudsman Service and on his first annual review back in 2000.
Then, as Merricks writes, “complaints about mortgage and insurance brokers and consumer credit providers were outside our remit, let alone those about payment services providers.
“We have now largely achieved the comprehensive coverage we aimed for, something consumers and the industry can now happily take for granted.”
Amen to that, says Chatroom. And to all his other achievements like, a year later, coping with a surge of mortgage endowment complaints which grew to constitute a third, then a half, then two-thirds of the FOS’ caseload.
But what really fascinates is Merricks’ observation that the FOS provides information about its service in more than 40 languages.
It’s obviously a source of pride for him but hang on, couldn’t language issue be at the root of many of the complaints the FOS receives?
