Quarterly complaints data: Q1 2022/23

Between April and June 2022, we received 65,740 new enquiries and 35,029 new complaints about financial products. On average we upheld 34% of these complaints. The most complained-about product was current accounts, followed by credit cards.

Following the significant increases we saw in recent years for complaints about the impact of Covid-19 and affordability, volumes of incoming complaints have returned to more normal levels. As we look ahead, we are mindful of the new challenges that the worsening economic environment and the rising cost of living could bring. As a result, we may see an increase in the volume of complaints. We will continue to engage with industry bodies, businesses and the FCA about their expectations for complaint volumes over the coming months.

The top five most complained-about products

1. Current accounts – 5,460
2. Credit cards – 3,372
3. Car or Motorcycle insurance – 2,524
4. Hire Purchase (Motor) – 1,751
5. Buildings insurance – 1,642

Our Q1 2022/23 trends in more detail

Fraud and scams, including investment scams

We continue to see a high number of complaints from victims of fraud and scams. In Q1 2022/23, scams related to fake investment opportunities made up around a third of the “authorised” scam complaints we received, and is the fastest growing issue as a proportion of the complaints we see about these scams. An authorised scam is where a person or business is tricked into sending money to a fraudster posing as a genuine account holder.

Typically, investment scams are where consumers are tricked into making a payment to an investment opportunity that does not exist. Other common scams include where a fraudster has impersonated a genuine firm or product. Just over half of the investment scams we have seen involve cryptocurrencies, where consumers were promised an investment that did not materialise, or were persuaded to open a cryptocurrency account and inadvertently sent money to a fraudster.

You can find out more about our approach to complaints involving fraud and scams, including case studies.

Investment-related complaints

Complaints about unregulated collective investment schemes (UCIS) and other non-mainstream investments had the highest uphold rate in Q1 2022/23 at 74%. We received 193 new complaints.

A UCIS is a high-risk and speculative investment where investors pool money which is collectively used to buy assets such as property and holiday resorts or parking spaces. Any growth or income is then shared amongst investors. These investments can only be promoted to a select group of individuals – high-net-worth investors, sophisticated investors, or self-certified sophisticated investors. And even where the individual meets the above criteria, the Financial Conduct Authority has indicated these investments should only make up between 3-5% of the investor’s portfolio.

Just under half of the complaints we saw about UCIS in Q1 (45%) are where consumers have complained they were given unsuitable advice about transferring their existing personal pension into a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) for the purpose of investing in a UCIS.

The second most complained-about issue – which made up 43% of cases we saw about UCIS – relates to complaints where consumers tell us a SIPP provider failed to carry out proper checks (known as “due diligence”) on investments to be included in the SIPP, or on businesses involved in giving advice about investments, which often turn out to be unregulated.

We have shared more information about the complaints we see about UCIS, including case studies.

In each release of quarterly data (about both financial products and relating to complaints about claims management companies), we publish the number of new enquiries and new complaints received in the period, together with the number of ombudsman referrals and the percentage of cases upheld in favour of the customer.

From the Q1 2020/21 releases, we changed the threshold for our reporting on the number of new complaints received. In previous releases, we published data where our service had received at least 30 new complaints about a product or service in the relevant reporting period. From Q1 2020/21, we reduced this threshold to the receipt of at least 10 new complaints, to increase the granularity of insight we’re able to offer stakeholders about complaints trends. Products and services where we have received at least one, but fewer than 10 new complaints, will be denoted as “<10”. 

We have also taken the opportunity to update our criteria for publishing uphold rates. Previously, we published the percentage of cases upheld in favour of the customer where we had both received 30 new complaints and resolved 30 complaints (excluding those we dismissed or decided were outside our jurisdiction) about a product or service in the relevant period. From Q1 2020/21, we will publish the uphold rate where we have resolved 30 or more complaints about the relevant product or service in the period – we will no longer apply a threshold relating to the receipt of new complaints when giving uphold rate data.

We have previously published the average uphold rate for all complaints received in the period, and separately the uphold rate not including Payment Protection Insurance (PPI). This is because PPI accounted for a significant proportion of our casework and skewed the overall uphold rate. From Q1 2022/23 we will no longer publish a separate overall and non-PPI uphold rate. This is due to the fact that PPI volumes have now fallen substantially, making the separate publication of the uphold rate less informative.

From Q1 2022/23 we have made some changes to our taxonomy, which enable us to provide more insight into the types of complaints we receive. Find out more about the changes to our taxonomy.