We do our best to give you a very high standard of service and we make every effort to settle complaints quickly and fairly. If we don't meet your expectations, you can make a complaint. We follow an internal complaints procedure to resolve it. This has been designed to meet the requirements of the Financial Conduct Authority and the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).
- We'll try and resolve your complaint within three business days of receiving it.
- If we're able to resolve it in this time, we'll send you a written summary of the resolution. This will confirm your complaint has been resolved.
- The summary will also remind you of your right to take your complaint to the FOS if you subsequently feel dissatisfied with the outcome.
Sometimes we need more time to look into your complaint.
- If we can't resolve it within three business days, we'll send you a written acknowledgement letter. This will be no later than five business days after receiving notification of your complaint.
- A customer relations consultant may get in touch with you if we need further information to resolve your complaint. We'll try and resolve your complaint within four weeks. If it's going to take longer, we'll let you know.
- We'll send a final response letter within eight weeks of the initial receipt of your complaint. We'll also remind you that you have a right to take your complaint to the FOS if you're not satisfied with the outcome.
- In the unlikely event that we can't give you a response within the eight-week period, you can refer your complaint to the FOS.
Payment Services complaints
These are any complaints in relation to a failure to execute or provide information on an electronic payment into or out of a Skipton Savings account.
If your complaint is in relation to a Payment Service a different process will apply, we'll still try to resolve your complaint within three business days of receiving it and if we do that we'll send you a written summary of resolution which will confirm your complaint has been resolved, just like for other complaints.
If we can't resolve it within three business days we'll send a response within 15 business days of the initial receipt of your complaint.
In exceptional circumstances we may take up to 35 business days. If our response will take longer than 15 business days, we will write to you and let you know.
We will still inform you that you can take your complaint to the FOS if you're not satisfied with the outcome. You can also take your complaint to FOS if we can't give you a response in 15 business days (or 35 business days in exceptional circumstances).
How the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) can help
The FOS is a free and independent service for consumers. You should refer the matter as soon as possible after our final response, but within six months of the date of our final response. Please note, there are certain types of complaint the FOS can't investigate or rule upon. You might want to contact the FOS to discuss your complaint with them before taking it any further.
Whilst you can refer your complaint to the FOS at anytime, they'll need our consent to investigate complaints where:
- we haven't had the chance to put things right
- we haven't exceeded the eight-week timescale and haven't yet issued our final response letter
- for Payment Service where we haven't exceeded the 15 business day timescale (35 business days in exceptional circumstances) and haven't yet issued our final response letter.
Contact details of the FOS are:
The Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London
E14 9SR
0800 023 4567
financial-ombudsman.org.uk