Complaints on rise at TD: report
Ombudsman dealt with 18 per cent more last year
Toronto-Dominion Bank’s ombudsman opened up 18 per cent more complaint cases in 2016 compared to 2015, with a larger proportion originating from their bank branches.
Of the 749 new cases opened last year, 70 per cent came from the bank’s banking unit, up from 57 per cent in 2015, according to TD’s latest Ombudsman annual report.
“The majority of our case files originated from the Branch Banking network, with general service issues such as a lack of clarity of information or process errors comprising the majority of complaints,” said the 2016 report, released last week. The bank’s insurance unit made up 18 per cent of the complaints, while the wealth management unit accounted for 10 per cent of complaints.
This comes a month after CBC News reports included allegations of a high-pressure sales environment at the bank. TD’s chief executive Bharat Masrani told shareholders at the bank’s annual meeting in March he does not believe the lender has a “widespread problem” with aggressive sales tactics.
Masrani added that “a few hundred complaints related to their sales practices that were escalated beyond the initial channel” and fewer than 100 that had compliance concerns were investigated and addressed.
“We take the concerns raised very seriously,” he told shareholders.
A TD spokeswoman said Monday that TD proactively encourages customers to use its problem resolution process.
“Increasing customer complaint volumes is an industry-wide trend and one that our competitors have consistently also experienced,” the TD spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
Overall, banking complaints are on the rise at the ombudsman’s offices in each of Canada’s biggest banks.
A subsequent CBC News report included allegations of a highpressure sales environment from employees at the other Big Five banks as well.