The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has come down in favour of consumers, fining Policy Administration Services (PAS) £2.8 for poor handling of complaints.
Following a 15 month investigation the FCA found the thousands of complains from customers were wrongly rejected and in many cases were simply ignored by PAS. One area that was highlighted was the rejection of mis-selling accusations against Phones 4U simply on the grounds that customers had signed a direct debit form.
PAS admitted shortcomings, opting to settle early in the investigation, and gaining a 30% discount in their fine. Without the discount the fine would have been more than £4m.
Tracey McDermott, the FCA’s director of enforcement and financial crime, said that PAS had failed to properly investigate complaints that were made and had not been keeping full and accurate records.
Phones 4U have issued a statement on behalf of PAS saying, “We apologise for those failings and have compensated the 1,438 affected customers. We engaged an independent third party to undertake a comprehensive review, and our processes were considerably improved in 2011 to ensure such failings do not occur again.”
