FSA urged to name firms that fail to pay FOS awards

Mr

As I could end up on the list of "shame" I will comment now. As a retired IFA I was on the receiving end of an FOS award. As by their own admission their process is less "formal" than the courts I thought that it was only fair to force the complainant to take me to court. In my case the complainant's case was that they had been encouraged to take excessive risk with an investment, but quantified the loss based on what one could only assume would be suffered if the investor had been prepared to take a risk. Not detered by that the FOS worked out a new formula for the client based on the assumption of low risk - some £3,000 less. In other words the FOS worked out a scenario to justify an award, not one based on the evidence presented. Any list of "shame" needs to be seen in the context that all that is required to make an FOS award is for a low paid low skilled adjudicator to be of the opinion that an offence has been committed. They are not required to be fair or reasonable or to prove their case in a court of law.

Posted by: John Davidson

namem&shamem

Great idea we should also have a list of names of those who have their claim turned down by FOS. That way the advisers out their would know what type of clients they were dealing with.

Posted by: lol

FOS Awards

We could have a list of those individuals who knowlingly withheld information relating to repossessed properties and CCJ's to obtain mortgages by deception, ignore all attempts from the IFA firm to re-assess their financial position and then come back 17 years later to claim they were "mis-sold". We could have a list of all those people who knew what an endowment was but 17 years later claim they were "mis-sold". We already have one - it's on Martin Lewis's website - have a look.

Posted by: Richard Hardy

FOS RISK WARNING MUST ALSO BE PUBLISHED

The Association of British Insurers has said that there was a rise in the value of fraudulent claims that have been uncovered, with the value rising to £730 million in 2008, which reflected an increase of 30 percent. And yet the FOS is telling us that claims rejected for 2008 as being just frivolous & vexatious are just 0.1% ! The FOS is an institutional conduit for FRAUD on a massive scale. I say let the FOS publish what they will but only with the following risk warning as to how the FOS arrived at their decision in the first place: FOS RISK WARNING: The FOS/FSA & its lack of an Appeal process offends the "fair trial" provisions of Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights ECHR incorporated into law by the Human Rights Act 1998. - The issue is really very simple: · 1215 Magna Carta, · the Bill of Rights of 1689 · Act of Settlement 1701 · The European Convention On Human Rights. The rule of law is defined as that which allows the rights of individuals to be determined by law and not the arbitrary actions of authority. It incorporates the right to a trial by jury, the presumption of innocence, the right of appeal, the freedom of association, a free press and free speech, the presumption that actions should not be judged retrospectively. With regard to the FSMA the issue is that the government has vested in the "executive" powers that it (the government) does not hold accountable and especially accountable to the judiciary. Thus S228 (2) of the Financial Services and Markets Acts empowers the FOS to impose on firms: "such steps as the ombudsman considers just and appropriate (whether or not a court could order those steps to be taken" - S229 (2)(b). The ESHR applies to criminal and civil rights. Article 7 provides for: No Punishment Without Law! The FOS & its lack of an Appeal process offends the "fair trial" provisions of Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights ECHR incorporated into law by the Human Rights Act 1998. The right to a Judicial Review is not a right to an appeal and an external appeal to the judiciary will maintain the quality of the FOS decision and ensure it is in accordance with the rule of law. The mere knowledge on the part of the complainant that the IFA is no longer a consumerist punch bag will immediately halt the many spurious and vexations complaints made in an endeavour to make money out of false compensation claims. No one goes to the law unless a real issue is at stage. The FOS can fine an IFA 100K and it is wrong to vest such power without possible redress by way of appeal. SIMON MANSELL TEMPLE BAR IFA LTD

Posted by: Simon Mansell