information for businesses covered by the ombudsman service
This section answers a number of frequently-asked questions (FAQs) about:
our funding
when the case fee is payable
at what stage do I have to pay the case fee?
When we receive a completed complaint form from a consumer, staff in our front-line consumer contact division will check it and any accompanying paperwork.
At this initial stage, based on the business's final response to the consumer and on what the complaint seems to be about, we may decide the complaint:
- is not something we deal with or
- involves a problem that can be nipped in the bud straight away without escalating the matter further.
Only around one in six of all the initial complaints and enquiries we receive go on to require more detailed consideration work by our adjudicators or ombudsmen. And it is only at that stage that a case becomes "chargeable".
We invoice businesses for chargeable cases at the end of the month in which the case is closed. In 2008/09 we will not charge the business for the first three cases we deal with each year. For the fourth and each subsequent complaint closed against it in that financial year, a case fee of £450 will charged.
For more details see our special factsheet: