How to complain effectively
Complaining effectively over a shoddy good or service calls for both hard and soft skills. It can also require the wisdom to accept partial victory, knowing the alternative is to waste years on embittered, unproductive pursuit of revenge.
During the past year, I’ve met many complainers, indicating some of the factors which lead some to succeed, and others fail.
In the months before Christmas, I covered the story of Auckland pensioner Bobby O’Connor, a nice man lacking many of the skills to complain.
He had the necessary determination to carry his complaint about a finance company pursuing him for the rump of a car loan gone wrong, but lacked the skills to engage successfully with it.
The money the finance company wanted to collect was the remains of an ill-fated loan in 2012, which ended with repossession after O’Connor suffered a sudden and unexpected debilitating health episode.
Unfortunately, he’d accepted too many expensive add-ons to the loan, like insurance that didn’t cover his particular health crisis, and he overpaid for the car, meaning when it was resold after the repossession, he ended up still owing the better part of $7000.
Instead of facing up to the situation, O’Connor put his head in the sand.
As a strategy, that worked for awhile, and the finance company let the loan slide for several years, before heading to court to get money diverted to pay off the loan from O’Connor’s NZ Super payments, leaving him struggling to make ends meet.
Decide what you want to achieve
When Imet O’Connor, he was in a bad state, prone to tears, and very possibly depressed, but he knew what he wanted to achieve, which is the first step in successful complaining.
He didn’t know how to achieve it, however, and struggled to deal with complex systems like courts. He also didn’t understand his legal rights, and didn’t have the money to engage a lawyer to tell him.
His attempts to get the loan written off amounted to pleas for mercy.
Getting your information
O’Connor had only partial information about his predicament, and didn’t know how to wield the Privacy Act.
There was a court file he had not seen relating to an order to divert money from his NZ Super payments.
There was also amass of information in the finance company’s files.
Unable to manage Privacy Act requests himself, O’Connor authorised me to make them for him to the courts and the finance company.
Ultimately, it was a note in the court file, in which a finance company employee told the court the loan was being written off, which persuaded the finance company to free O’Connor from the debt it was claiming.
Privacy Act requests can also reveal surprising, and powerful, information.
In the case of Auckland widow Karen Van Golstein, whom Imet in August, that included a shocking smiley face in an insurer’s email to its medical adviser when it discovered grounds to turn down her claim.
The insurer ended up paying her claim.
Patience, literacy, and a helper
Some complaints get settled quickly, but in other cases, it can seem like organisations prolong the process to discourage complainants, meaning patience can be a virtue for a complainer.
And some require complainants to
have relatively high levels of literacy, and digital skills.
People who aren’t good on email, don’t read so well, struggle to research their rights, or find it had to push back to authority, need to find an advocate/ helper.
O’Connor tried a community law centre, but it was not helpful. A budgeting agency like Christians Against Poverty might have been his next option, or the Citizens’ Advice Bureau.
In desperation, he turned to the media.
A civil tongue
Driven to frustration by an obdurate company, or government agency, people sometimes snap. This can end up acting against their interests.
While O’Connor was a courteous man, which played well for him with the finance company, I’ve met several men who ended up being ‘‘exited’’ from their banks for their behaviour, even though both were understandably angry.
One case I was involved with, which didn’t result in a story, involved aman accused by bank staff of telling them he had visited a branch during the limited opening hours in lockdown in order to give them Covid-19.
Sadly, the man lost his temper over this claim, and it doesn’t take much for a
bank to label a complainant as ‘‘threatening’’, and that makes resolution of the complaint much harder.
Letting them know you are serious
For complaints over smaller amounts of money, there are a number of simple, lowcost, complaints-handling bodies and tribunals like the Disputes Tribunal, the Banking Ombudsman, and the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal.
A company which knows a complainant will go to such a body may take it more seriously.
These bodies try to be easy to deal with, but still require a high degree of literacy in making an application to them, and again, many people will need to find themselves an advocate, or an ally.
A successful example of this was Dunedin man Mark Thorn, who won compensation through the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal from amotor dealer who sold him a repaired insurance ‘‘write off’’ without explicitly telling him. Thorn was helped through the process by a highly literate professional friend.
Accepting partial victory
Complainants I’ve met tend to have one or more of four desires: compensation for losses and stress, a sincere apology, a guarantee others won’t have to suffer as they have, and revenge on individuals they hold responsible for wronging them.
Not all complaints-handling bodies are set up to achieve all these things.
Compensation levels may be lower than hoped for, and it can be unclear whether the organisation complained about has really been taught a lesson. The maximum compensation the Banking Ombudsman can offer is just $9000.
Some complaints resolution bodies are very transparent and legalistic, like the Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal. Others, like the Banking Ombudsman, have a heavier focus on negotiating outcomes, and do not name the companies involved.
To have a company held truly accountable for bad behaviour requires people to go to a government regulator like the Commerce Commission, or the Financial Markets Authority, but these do not have the resources act on all complaints.