Was it the actual onbudsman or just the first stage investigator?
At the bottom of my PDF it says:
If either party disagrees
and wants an Ombudsman to consider the case, they must inform us – and submit any
further evidence or representations – by 2 February 2023.
So I guess you take it to the next level and escalate to an ombudsman?
The first person who looks at it is just an investigator. Where you go from there I don’t know. But I would think an Onbudsman will have a better grasp on applying the rules appropriately.
Whenever I’ve complained to a big bank in the past though, they’re pretty quick to just throw £100 compensation at me for the inconvenience, which to me has always been a tell of where the FOS is likely to go should it be escalated to them.
It was just the first stage investigator. From what I understand an actual Ombudsman decision can take years at the moment, but I’m waiting.
It’s just frustrating that you spend time to explain things in a complaint to them, then the investigators in most cases don’t even take the time to engage with it properly.
You get a nice email to say “hey I will be investigating and I will shortly be reaching out to both parties to understand things better” and then instead you get a decision notice that just regurgitates the same exact points that the bank made to me in correspondence I submitted as part of the complaint.
There is no independent thought given to it at times by the first tier and then you spend even more time on complaining and waiting. Yes, I’m particularly annoyed because I just received a particularly stupid decision notice while ill, with a 4 working day window to appeal! 4! They don’t even give me a chance and this appeal window is also completely arbitrary.
The £100 from big banks is probably to make you go away before they have to pay £750 to FOS + costs for handling the case. It’s easier than to chance it.
I don’t feel like the decision from mine did any of that really. But I don’t know much of an influence Monzo admitting to them they handled it wrong affected that.
There’s a redacted version of mine (removed names, titles, pronouns) over on fintechforum if you’d like to read mine.
As someone who works in financial services, I kinda get that. It’s likely they’ll be pressure from above to be logging dissatisfaction to make sure they meet a quota of complaints. The goalposts change but I’ve had: NanoOp don’t be logging grumbles, and then you’re not logging enough! I reckon they’ve an equivalent but of course this is just pure speculation.
UPDATE: Monzo took over a month to address my complaint, only to say it’s nothing to do with them it’s an Assurant problem. Assurant won’t do anything until I send them back the phone which I’m not going to do as it’s inconvenient being without it, super inconvenient having to wipe it and IDK why I should, given I’ve already sent it away and they did a sub-standard job.
Off to the ombudsman I go…
You have to give them the opportunity to make it right. Refusing to send it back (I understand why you don’t want to do that) is going to undermine you point.
I have experience of making an insurance claim with Monzo/Assurant having had my iPhone 14 Pro Max snatched from my hands in central London. My phone was a week old!!
I made a claim and a replacement device was sent to me the very next day. It was the same replacement you’d receive when you make a warranty claim to Apple, whether that be statutory or via Apple Care+. A serial numbered slim brown box. I know this because I have made claims to Apple Care on previous devices.
Assurant also paid me directly into my Monzo account the cost of replacing my leather iPhone case and a MagSafe leather wallet.
Of course loss is much different to a repair, but the purpose of my post is to emphasise that the service is not all that bad, and not much different to the alternatives out there.
Apple does not provide a brand new phone when you make a claim you receive a refurbished device. It also has a number of conditions in place when a phone is lost. It will not honour a claim where the phone does now have ‘Find My’ activated and is visible for them to track. The excesses applied by Apple are also generally higher. Apple does not honour your claim, AIG does.
Apple itself only honours statutory warranty claims.
Of course choosing Apple to repair an Apple made device makes sense, and you will not be confronted with issues surrounding non-apple approved parts (which will trigger a warning in the settings app on the device) which is a whole separate discussion.
Any cover is good cover when you’re at a loss without a phone, or without the means to either replace or repair your beloved device.
I hope you get your repair issue resolved to your statisfaction.
Didn’t see the point of starting a new topic so thought I would reply here.
I’ve claimed once for a lost phone a couple of years ago but now with max and damage cover I’ve just had my first experience of sending for repair/replacement.
My phone was badly damaged when it went flying out of my hand when my dog got a fight and ran to the end of his lead. It broke completely on the back and damaged the sides.
Aside from explaining the phone is rather glitchy since - all that assurant did was replace the back glass - the damage sustained to the sides of the phone completely ignored?
I’ve had to send back - but surely if damage is covered - it should only be repaired if ALL of the damage is going to be repaired rather than just some of the damage.
Here is a picture for example of the damage sustained as part of the drop that was ignored as part of the repair.
That’s cosmetic damage. Doesn’t affect functionality and is harmless. Assurant won’t usually bother to fix that stuff. They’ve clauses in their policy wording and terms that stipulate this. Nothing they’ll do, and you’ve no grounds for a complaint unfortunately.
If it is just a scratch or dent, and your mobile phone still works as expected, then we will
not repair or replace it. For example, a scratched screen would not be covered but a
cracked screen would be covered.
I get where you’re coming from, but they have a pretty astute escape clause for this stuff. If they didn’t, they’d have probably swapped it out for a refurb from the get go.
You might get lucky if you complain enough and go high enough that they’ll still offer to do that to put it right, I’m just saying be prepared that they have the grounds to essentially tell you lol no.
It really sucks, but this is pretty standard in the industry, unfortunately. Only AppleCare+ or an insurance provider that would allow you to take it to Apple for a repair would this damage be remedied too.
If you get nowhere with Assurant and it really bothers you, you can see if Apple will do an out of warranty refurb swap for you, but it’s a steep repair fee, and they might not touch it if the replaced back isn’t a genuine Apple Part (which knowing Assurant, it likely won’t be).
