Overall total enquiries to the Financial Ombudsman last year have fallen by nearly 15% to 1,394k. The number of complaints was down as a whole almost entirely due to the reduction in PPI complaints.
There were 321k new complaints (-5%). After PPI complaints, current accounts were the next most complained about product, representing a quarter of all complaints, however in third place were complaints against Consumer Credit Services which at nearly 26k had doubled in just one year. This rapid growth in consumer credit complaints was fuelled by Pay Day (HCSTC) which surged to 10,529 complaints- a threefold growth since last year. HCSTC now represents 38% of all consumer credit complaints, with the next largest being hire purchase, point-of-sale loans, catalogues, debt collecting. Amongst the fastest growing are instalment loans and guarantor loans. 43 per cent of consumer credit complaints were upheld. The other sectors showing significant growth in complaints are motor and travel insurance at around 40%.
Pawnbroking complaints are too small for FOS to track but under freedom of information on most recent data NPA established that only 15 complaints against pawnbroking were upheld, with the average of the last four years being 13 complaints a year.
Caroline Wayman, chief ombudsman & chief executive said “This annual review shows vividly how the times we’re living in affect how we feel about and manage money”
For the full report data go to;
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/annual-review-2017/pdf/Datamoredepth-AR2016-17.pdf