Finance firms get a complaint every 4 seconds

A COMPLAINT is made about insurers or banks every four seconds, figures show.

A rush of payment protection insurance (PPI) claims meant financial firms received 3.76million complaints in the second half of 2017. About 1.55million related to PPI, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This was a 40 per cent surge on the same period in 2016 and a four-year high.

Excluding PPI, the number of complaints received by financial firms was 2.21million, around 13,000 fewer than the previous six months.

Banks have already paid out £30billion for mis-sold PPI, which was sold alongside credit cards and loans in the late 1990s and 2000s. The FCA has set a deadline for claims of August 29 this year.

Justin Modray, of financial website Candid Money, said: ‘These figures highlight the double-whammy of financial firms continuing to deliver poor service to customers and a rush of victims of payment protection insurance trying to beat the FCA’s deadline.’

If customers are rejected for PPI claims they can turn to the Financial Ombudsman, where mis-selling claims now make up half of the complaints it receives.