How to Voice Your Concerns
Resolving your complaints with us
At Bank of Scotland, we aim to provide excellent customer service whenever you deal with us. If we do not achieve this, we would very much like to know so we can have the opportunity to put things right.
You can write or speak to:
- your Relationship Manager
- anyone in your Relationship Manager’s team
- the relevant contact at the location that first dealt with the matter (e.g. a branch or service centre)
- the relevant contact for day-to-day queries as advised in the “Service Directory” (where in issue)
- using the contact us link.
You can expect us to:
- take your complaint seriously and positively
- understand the nature of your complaint and how you feel it should be resolved
- advise you whether we can resolve the matter immediately or not
- keep you regularly informed of progress when investigating an unresolved complaint, using your preferred method of communication where at all possible
- be fair in our assessment, putting matters right if we have caused you inconvenience, distress, disadvantage or loss
- learn from our mistakes.
The majority of complaints should be resolved within two working days. When this is not going to be the case, we will provide an acknowledgement of your complaint within five working days unless other arrangements are agreed with you in advance.
After that, we will regularly update you on progress as advised in our acknowledgement until we have completed our investigations and issued our final response. We aim to issue our response within eight weeks of the date your complaint was raised. You may, of course, contact your Relationship Manager at any time should you wish to discuss progress or any other matter relating to the complaint.
Our final response will address all of your concerns, confirm whether the complaint is being upheld or rejected and if eligible provide referral rights to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you remain dissatisfied with the outcome.
If you’re unhappy with how we have handled your complaint
If you are unhappy with our response, you should contact your Relationship Manager as soon as possible, including details of further information that may be applicable to the case. You can expect us to consider any new information and for us to either provide an updated decision or reaffirm our prior position.
You can expect us to:
- fully consider the reason(s) for your dissatisfaction
- take into account any new information and respond accordingly
Eligibility for the Financial Ombudsman Service
The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) provides support on individual unresolved complaints from personal customers and small businesses.
In order to refer a complaint to the FOS, you must meet the FOS eligibility criteria. The FOS will consider complaints from:
- a private individual
- a small business which has an annual turnover, and/or balance sheet, of up to 2 million euros and fewer than ten staff (micro enterprise)
- a charity which has an annual income of less than £1million
- a trustee of a trust which has a net asset value of less than £1million.
Whilst the vast majority of Commercial Banking customer complaints will fall outside the above criteria, you should speak to your Relationship Manager if you consider this is not the case for your complaint.
In any event, in order to be eligible for referral to the FOS the complaint must either have been fully investigated by us, with a final response having been issued, or, no final response has been provided after eight weeks from the complaint being made.
Further details on the Financial Ombudsman Service can be found at: www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk, by telephoning 0800 023 4567, by emailing complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk, or by writing to:
Financial Ombudsman Service
South Quay Plaza
183 Marsh Wall
London
E14 9SR
Our service promise
We aim to provide the highest level of customer service possible. If you do experience a problem, we will always seek to resolve this as quickly and efficiently as possible.