This document supplements the Summary of Key Information and the Letter of Authority.
By signing this document and the Letter of Authority you are agreeing to the terms and conditions in this document and the Summary of Key Information.
What we will do
We will gather as much information as possible about what has happened to you and your money. In some cases we may need you to send us documentation to support your case.
We will then assess the circumstances to determine if you meet our internal requirements to take on your claim. If you do not, we will provide you with details on how to take your claim forward yourself.
- If you meet our internal requirements, we will take on your claim and complain either to your bank or the bank that received your money.
- If the bank does not deal with your complaint in a way that we think is fair to you, we will take your case to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) and explain to them why we think you’ve been treated unfairly.
- We will keep you updated throughout the process at key milestones and at least every 6 months.
How long will it take?
- We will progress your case as quickly as possible but unfortunately many delays can occur depending on the circumstances of your case and particularly if your complaint needs to be reviewed by the Financial Ombudsman Service. Below are some indicative timelines:
Stage 1: Information gathering: This takes around 2 weeks. This depends on the completeness of information you’ve provided us with up front and whether we need you to send us additional documentation. Often we will be able to progress your case to a complaint to the bank once you’ve signed our terms and conditions.
Stage 2: Complaining to your bank: Banks have 15 days or 8 weeks to respond and give you a final response depending on the nature of your complaint. Sometimes banks take a little longer to respond.
Stage 3: Complaining to the Financial Ombudsman Service: This takes anything from 3 months up to 2 years. Unfortunately it’s difficult for us to provide any clearer timelines on cases that go to FOS at present. There are 2 internal stages at FOS. If your complaint is resolved at the early stage by a case handler it may only take a few months. However, if you or the bank are not happy with the decision it may need to go to a second stage (to an Ombudsman for a final response), in which case timelines vary and can take many years in the most extreme circumstances.
You will be charged per case
If you’ve been a victim of a number of different scams we are helping you with, each scam will be treated as a separate case.
If you’ve been a victim of a single scam that involved you making payments from more than one bank, each bank you made a payment from or to will be treated as a separate case.
See the “Your Cases” section below for details of the cases we are helping you with.