On receipt of your complaint we will record receipt of the complaint and write to acknowledge receipt of your complaint within five working days, unless it can be resolved within one business day. Within the acknowledgement letter we will provide you with a copy of these complaint procedures.
We will endeavour to communicate with you in a clear and fair manner at all times whilst investigating your complaint.
If your complaint was made verbally, then within our acknowledgement letter we will confirm our understanding of your complaint.
Your complaint will then be investigated by our Compliance Officer who will gather all documentation required in order to thoroughly and objectively conduct the investigation. This may require some additional information from you and therefore an authority letter may be required so we can approach any third party necessary.
During the above process we will keep you informed of its progress to date and whether there is any further information we require from you. We will aim to deal with your complaint as quickly as possible.
If we have not resolved your complaint within eight weeks from date of receipt, we will write to you again with our reasons for delay and will also enclose the leaflet ‘Your Complaint and the Ombudsmen’ informing you of your rights to take action further to the Financial Ombudsman if you are unhappy with the progress. We will confirm when we expect our final response to be made.
Within our final response letter we will set out our understanding of your complaint, the issues raised, the investigation we conducted and the outcome from the investigation. We will also detail any redress we believe appropriate or the reasons for declining redress.
If you are not satisfied with our final response, you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, free of charge.
The Ombudsman might not be able to consider your complaint if:
- What you are complaining about happened more than six years ago
- You are complaining more than three years after you realised (or should have realised) that there was a problem.
We will tell you if we think that your complaint is made outside of these time limits but this is a matter for the Ombudsman to decide. If the Ombudsman agrees with us, they will not have our permission to consider your complaint and so will only be able to do so in very limited circumstances.
If you do decide to refer your complaint to the Ombudsman you must do so within six months of our final response letter.
If you do not refer your complaint to the Ombudsman within six months of the date of this letter, the Ombudsman will not have our permission to consider your complaint and so will only be able to do so in very limited circumstances
You can contact FOS by:
0800 023 4 567
complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
The Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London E14 9SR
If you are unhappy with our service
If you have a complaint about your adviser, or any financial advice you have received from your adviser, please contact:
Quilter Financial Planning Complaints Department
Riverside House
The Waterfront
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE15 8NY
Email: qfpcomplaints@quilter.com
Tel: 0191 241 0700
You can find more information by visiting the Quilter Financial Planning website:
Http://www.quilterfinancialplanning.co.uk/contacts/
If you cannot settle your complaint with us, you may be entitled to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service (www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk)