Essential Reading
"Consumer Complaints and Compensation: A Guide to the Financial Services Market" City & Financial (638 pages) - £64.00
To order a signed copy, e-mail Adam Samuel on adamsamuel@aol.com
The book
This is the first ever book on consumer financial services complaint handling in the UK. At a time, when the Financial Ombudsman's Service's caseload is still around 100,000 a year and the FSA keeps churning out fines for complaint handling and the types of misselling that give rise to it, this is simply the only book out there on the subject.
Any book on complaints has to look at how to avoid them and the compliance and legal rules governing how firms treat their customers. The first two chapters set the stage. The book starts with a discussion of the role played by consumer complaints and the way they are handled. The challenge is to make the team dealing with dissatisfied customers the conscience of the company, a major source of corporate information and a principal weapon in the customer retention process. Who should handle customers and how is all part of the introduction. Then, we look at the standards to be observed when dealing with complaints. The odd relationship between notions of reasonableness and law receives a serious look.
Chapters 3 to 8 are the compliance chapters. They look at the rules advisers have to observe or had to in the past. Special chapters on endowments, pensions and savings and investments complement the general sections on deciding whether to uphold a complaint, "defenses" and administration complaints.
The second major part of the book, Chapters 9-14, looks at the difficult area of compensation. Again, general chapters on sales and administration cases are backed up by specialist major chapters on pensions and endowments.
Finally, the book turns to the complaints process. Identification, acknowledgement, investigation, final responses are all examined in turn. There is a detailed discussion of both the rules and how to apply them in practice. Finally, a major chapter on the Financial Ombudsman Service looks at its jurisdiction, including time-limits, how it operates, its powers and the limited scope for challenging it.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Building the complaints culture
Rules applicable to complaints
Deciding whether the firm is liable
financial services sales generally
mortgage endowments
savings and investments
avoiding liability for misselling
administration complaints
Compensation
generally
mortgage endowments
pensions
admin complaints
The Complaints process
Scope of DISP
Building a complaints procedure
Identification
Acknowledgement
Investigation
Final Response
Closing the case
Financial Ombudsman Service
Other dispute resolution options
What people say about it
"Recently, I had cause to research the area of execution-only, a minefield if ever there was one. One excellent source of inform-ation was Adam Samuel's book - Consumer Comp-laints and Compensation. Read this and execution-only becomes a nightmare and only for the brave or the foolish… The tautology deployed in our sector is not something any of us should overlook for long. If you doubt me buy Adam's book - www. adamsamuel.com. You will not regret it."
Robert Reid, Money Marketing 16 February 2006
Click the "Buy Now" button to order - it's just £64 (including postage) You'll then be taken to a secure, PayPal, payment page. Complete the forms and follow their instructions to make your payment. I will then post you a copy within 24 hours and email you to let you know. Buying Instructions (International) If you would like the book delivered to a non-UK address then email me for instructions.
Bulk Orders & Alternative Payment
If you would like to order multiple copies of my book email me here...
If you would prefer to pay by cheque instead then email me here...
Alternatively for all enquiries call me on 0207 323 9171
£64 inc. Postage (UK)
