The 20 worst offenders have been detailed in a new report released this month.
The FCA have revealed the most complained about investment fund firms in the second half of 2019.
They have also shed some light on complaints across the financial services more broadly, which saw over six million complaints in that period. This was an incredible 40% increase on the 4.3 million complaints in the first half of 2019, though the increase can mainly be put down to the PPI deadline which saw a 75% increase in complaints.
Excluding PPI, however, there were increases across the board, with a 6% increase across all other volumes. The most complained about products were current accounts (10%), credit cards (6%), and other general insurance products (5%).
Complaints about investment products also rose from 2.1m to 2.3m. Below are the worst investment offenders from the FCA report.
Many of these complaints will be related to unsuitable investment advice. If you are unhappy with an investment, you can complain to the investment firm direct. However, if they have not responded within 8 weeks, or you are not happy with the response, you can complain to the independent complaints service, the Financial Ombudsman Service.
There are time limits for complaining to the Financial Ombudsman Service. You must complain:
- within six months of the firm sending you their final response, and
- within six years of the event you’re complaining about, or (if it’s more than six years) within three years of the time you could reasonably have known you had cause to complain.
You are also entitled to compensation if an investment firm goes bust. If you have lost money because a UK bank or financial firm has gone out of business, you may be able to claim compensation through the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
This only applies to firms that are regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority (which covers most financial firms).
Smooth Commercial Law deal with both the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and the Financial Ombudsman Service regularly and understand how to navigate their processes. If you have a complaint about a regulated investment firm, our expert team can guide you through the process of raising a complaint and will fight your corner if the investment firm denies any wrongdoing.
How can Smooth Commercial help you?
At Smooth Commercial Law, our team of experts have extensive experience in dealing with a whole manner of claims that arise from negligent and/or unsuitable financial advice. We are seeing more and more mis-sold financial products, and have managed to secure compensation for many of our clients.
Should you have a claim, we can deal with your case and look to recover compensation for not just your loss of investment but also any adverse tax liabilities that you may now be facing as well.
You can contact our experienced team by calling 0800 046 9976 or by emailing sb@smooth-commercial-law.co.uk
Full Data
https://www.fca.org.uk/data/complaints-data/aggregate-complaints-data-2019-h2
https://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/the-20-most-complained-about-investment-firms/a1347349