THE FINANCIAL Services Ombudsman has said there has been a 32 per cent increase in the number of complaints to his office so far this year on the same period last year, with a significant jump in the number of complaints about alleged misselling of products and the fall in the value of investments.
The ombudsman, Joe Meade, said his office had received 4,700 complaints this year to the end of last week. He said there had been a 29 per cent increase in the number of complaints about insurance and a 38 per cent rise in the number of complaints concerning credit institutions.
Some 2,500 complaints related to insurance, with the remaining 2,200 concerning credit institutions such as banks, other lenders and credit unions.
"Significantly, we have received more than 250 complaints of alleged misselling and falls in the value of investments," he said.
This represented a 210 per cent increase on the number of such complaints last year, he added.
Irish shares, which account for a significant proportion of personal investments and pensions, have fallen 60 per cent this year, shedding €55 billion in value.
"People are obviously worried about investments they have made and they are maintaining that they were missold on the products and that these products were unsuitable for them," he said. "Some people have claimed that they were given mortgages that should not have been given to them."
He said his office had to investigate these complaints, and that in general it upheld complaints in 60 per cent of the cases that it investigated, and rejected the remaining 40 per cent.
Mr Meade said his office had received 14,000 phone calls from members of the public so far this year. This compares with 8,500 for the whole of last year.
He attributed the increase in the number of calls and complaints to his office to the public's growing awareness that they could make complaints about financial and investment products.
He said that, following the High Court's quashing of his ruling in a complaint by Enfield credit union against Davy Stockbrokers in July, his office had revised its complaints procedures, increasing the average period of investigation of complaints from three months to between five and six months.
Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan yesterday appointed Dermott Jewell, chief executive of the Consumers' Association of Ireland, as chairman of the Financial Services Ombudsman Council. He will replace outgoing chairman Dr Con Power.
Mr Lenihan also appointed as council members Paddy Leydon of Bank of Ireland, Frank Wynn of Irish Life Assurance, Caitríona Ní Charra, co-ordinator at Money Advice and Budgeting Service (Mabs), consultant Michael Connolly, former Competition Authority chairman Paddy Lyons and UCD lecturer Tony Kerr.
