The Operations Director of The Financial Services Ombudsman Bureau, Roy Hewlett, is another of those "I am always right and cannot be contradicted" types of large organisation Directors who cannot possibly bring himself to admit their continued use of an 0845 number as the primary means of contacting their Bureau is a total disgrace.  Indeed incredibly in spite of all the evidence to the contrary presented to him he still maintains that they are subsidising the cost of every 0845 call made to them!

And that is before we even consider the matter of it not being possible to file a complaint with their Bureau online and being forced to submit it by post using forms that can only be completed in ink.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: 26 May 2007 14:52
To: Hewlett, Roy
Cc: walter.merricks@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; tony.boorman@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; estelle.clark@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; david.cresswell@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; jeremy.kean@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; peter.stansfield@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; david.thomas@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; sharon.jones@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; nick.clansey@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; ray.neighbour@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; christopher.kelly@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
Subject: Your Continued Failure to Correctly Understand The 0845 Calls Issue & Ink Based Signature Complainant Authority Issue

Dear Mr Hewlett,

I find your comments about your 0845 number do not make any sense as you still claim incorrectly that you are subsidising the cost of each of the calls to the number when this is clearly arrant nonsense as 0845 numbers are never cheaper to call than an 01/02 number for most callers and usually are much more expensive.  I'm afraid that you aren't subsiding your callers costs at all but instead are being ripped off by your telecoms provider who are making a substantial profit each day from calls to your 0845 number and then incredibly charging you extra for the privilege.   When I can set up an 0845 number to my 01306 home phone line free of charge with the most competitive providers it beats me why you would pay to have your callers overcharged.   I suspect this is an example of a complacent ombudsman service being ripped off by ruthless telecoms companies through its own commercial naivety.  And as you are not using the call centre redistribution features of 0845 numbers to other call centres (as the Inland Revenue for instance does) I cannot imagine what is your case for having one, other than being unwilling to admit you have made a terrible mistake.

You say you are publishing your 020 number but you are only quoting it for callers from overseas and not quoting it alongside the 0845 number for UK callers.  Also I must point out that for a while Ofcom tried the nonsense of quoting the 0845 and 020 number together and then when the penny finally dropped with them that 0845 was always a worse deal (which you as a well paid member of ombudsman staff with probably a company provided  mobile and letting someone else in your home pay the landline phone bills still do not seem to realise or accept) they finally expunged the 0845 number from their website as you should have done by now.

Also I notice you still have not answered my questions about what you are doing to replace the outdated requirement that says your complainants can only give you their authority to pursue complaints via an ink based signature and not via your website.

Regards,

-----Original Message-----
From: Hewlett, Roy [mailto:Roy.Hewlett@financial-ombudsman.org.uk]
Sent: 25 May 2007 08:29
Subject: RE: Details of High Costs of Calling Your 0845 Contact Centre Number

Thank you for your further email with information about 0845 phone numbers. This is an area where we have been watching developments closely - and which we will continue to keep under review. Currently we believe the most flexible option is to offer both our 0845 number and our 020-prefixed switchboard number - so callers can choose themselves which number to phone. You will see that we make clear to consumers the cost of using our 0845 number (for example, see the disclosure box at http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/contact/index.html). I should clarify, however, that we do not make money from our 0845 number. On the contrary, we run the line at a very significant cost to ourselves, because of the extent to which we are subsidising calls made to that number.

Roy Hewlett
Operations Director

And here is my first email to the aforesaid Bureau of overpaid Bureaucrats who clearly put themselves and their fat cat salaries before the complaints of mere Financial Services Consumers.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: 22 May 2007 16:21
To: Hewlett, Roy
Cc: walter.merricks@finacial-ombudsman.org.uk; tony.boorman@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; estelle.clark@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; david.cresswell@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; jeremy.kean@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; peter.stansfield@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; david.thomas@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; sharon.jones@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; nick.clancy@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; ray.neighbour@financial-ombudsman.org.uk; christopher.kelly@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
Subject: An Ombudsman Wedded to The Use of The Quill Pen & Overpriced Covert Premium Rate Phone Calls

Dear Mr Hewlett,

In your below email you hide behind the suggestion that an ink signature in 2007 is still the only way for people to give their legally binding authority for things to happen.

So how then do you explain online banking, online air ticket sales, online electoral registration etc, etc, etc.  How also do you explain the various governmental statements on making all services available online and your stubborn refusal as an organisation to take any actions to meet those targets.  How also does one explain both the Financial Services Authority and the Information Commissioner's Office accepting complaints on the basis of an online form?

The truth of the matter is that your office seems to have no incentive whatsoever to bother to update its antiquated procedures for taking complaints because you do not operate in a competitive business marketplace where you would lose profits or budget by doing so.

You also do not comment at all on your organisation's continued outrageous use of an 0845 number for its main customer contact line when the use of these numbers by governmental bodies or bodies in the public sector has been widely condemned as they cost many times more than making a normal phone call from a landline or especially a mobile phone for many phone users.

It seems to me that when people need to raise a complaint with the Financial Services Ombudsman your body currently goes out of its way to make it about as difficult as it possibly can be to do so.  I know that when I previously wanted to file a complaint with you last August about Barclays Stockbrokers stealing 3% to 4% a year from me in lost deposit interest on cash funds that your failure to have a modern online method of quickly filing a complaint with your office stood in the way of me doing so.

The quality of the so called senior staff that you employ in managerial positions in some of your main customer facing roles in your contact centres also seems to me to reflect very poorly indeed on the judgement of those further up the management chain.  I say that because taking and dealing with complaints is all about good communication and one of your senior centre call managers seems to lack virtually all normal business communication skills.

I note that you have still failed to quote me any target date for your organisation to replace the need for a signature with a modern means of online submission of complaints appropriate to doing business in the 21st Century.

Yours in severe disappointment.

Regards,

Dave wrote on May 2^nd, 2009 at 10:10pm:


Presumably even the awful Mr Roy Hewlett at the FSO has finally been embarrassed in to seeing the light as a result of the switch of the Financial Services Authority and/or the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman to 0300 numbers following my long running campaign against both those outfits finally bearing fruit.

Or better still perhaps the awful Mr Roy Hewlett has finally left the FSO and been replaced by someone of rather greater intellect and perceptiveness.