FOS hit with massive rise in complaints

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has seen a 179% increase in complaints about financial products and services in the first quarter of the 2013/14 financial year.

The service received 159,197 new complaints in the three-month period compared with 57,076 in the same period last year, according to figures published today. Payment Protection Insurance claims again made up the bulk of all complaints with more than 132,000 claims received between April and June this year. This represented 83% of all consumer gripes - up from a comparatively low 56% last year. Coming in third with 2% of all complaints, mortgages stayed level at about 3,000 complaints referred to the FOS in the period and a similar uphold rate to last year. Over the whole of last year...