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information for businesses covered by the ombudsman service

This section answers a number of frequently-asked questions (FAQs) about:

our funding

paying if a consumer loses

why should I pay a case fee if a consumer complains about me to the ombudsman – and loses?

Our focus on mediation – settling disputes informally on a "no blame" basis – means we can resolve many complaints without needing to apportion right and wrong. And in many of the other decisions we make there's no clear-cut "winner" and "loser".

In cases like these, arguing whether a case fee should be payable would only increase costs all round. And if we only charged the business a case fee when the consumer clearly "won", the fee would have to be much bigger – to cover the costs of our work on all the other cases. It might also wrongly suggest that we had a financial incentive to uphold complaints.

In any event, in 2008/09 a business is not charged a case fee for the first three cases we deal with each year. So fewer than 1% of businesses covered by the ombudsman service currently pay case fees.

For this very small minority of businesses, the amount involved – £450 per case after the third complaint – is much less than the legal costs that might otherwise be involved in defending a complaint in court, where the publicity could be far more damaging to their bottom line.

For more details see our special factsheet:

a quick guide to ... funding and case fees