Companies failing to bring down numbers of complaints

Past Ombudsman figures have highlighted Lloyds Bank as one of the worst for using the tactic, and yesterday’s figures reveal that 78 per cent of the complaints against the bank were upheld between July and December 2015.

Past Ombudsman figures have highlighted Lloyds Bank as one of the worst for using the tactic (Getty)

Financial companies are still failing to deal properly with customer complaints, judging by the latest figures from the Financial Ombudsman.

They reveal that the numbers of complaints about mis-sold PPI remain high while there continue to be alarmingly large numbers of decisions ruled against some financial institutions.

The banks have repeatedly faced accusations that they have compounded their crimes in the biggest scandal ever to hit the industry by using delaying tactics to try to wear people down in the hope that they will give up their claims.

Past Ombudsman figures have highlighted Lloyds Bank as one of the worst for using the tactic, and yesterday’s figures reveal that 78 per cent of the complaints against the bank were upheld between July and December 2015.

That is the same upheld rate as in the first six months of the year but actually higher than the 74 per cent of complaints upheld again the bank between July and December 2014. That suggests Lloyds is making even less of an effort to deal fairly with customers looking for the compensation they are entitled to.

The credit card companies also appear to be poor at dealing with complaints. Capital One was ruled against in 74 per cent of cases taken to the Ombudsman while at MBNA the figure was 69 per cent.

In contrast, while Bank of Scotland had more complaints than any other individual financial business, the number upheld against it was less than half, at 47 per cent.

The compensation bill from the banks forced to repay consumers mis-sold PPI is fast approaching £30bn and despite the Financial Conduct Authority planning to put a deadline on complaints of spring 2018, there is little sign of a let up in the tide of fed-up consumers.

The figures reveal there were 92,667 new PPI complaints in the last six months of 2015, almost the same as the previous six months when there 94,091. However the number of complaints about financial companies taken to the Ombudsman fell slightly in the second half. It took on 164,347 new cases, a fall of 6 per cent from the first six months of the year.