The complaints process
How do I make a complaint?
Learn more about how to take the first step with your complaint.
You contact us with your complaint
To start the complaint process, you’ll first need to get in touch. You can make a complaint about your financial service provider by:
Completing a complaint form
Download and fill in our complaint form or submit one online.
Contacting your provider directly
You can contact your provider directly to let them know that you would like to make a complaint.
We will send your complaint to your provider
We will send your complaint to your provider to give them the opportunity to resolve it directly with you.
Your provider will contact you to resolve your complaint
Your provider should contact you within 2-3 working days, to let you know they have received your complaint.
Your provider:
- will investigate your complaint
- may contact you to discuss your complaint
- will give you their response to your complaint.
We would expect your provider to have resolved your complaint within 20 working days. However, some complaints are complicated and may require you to provide more information, and may take up to 2 months. If your complaint is not resolved after 2 months, we will start our investigation.
If your complaint is not resolved
Please let us know if you do not accept your providers response to your complaint, and we will likely start our investigation.
It is helpful if you tell us what you think the provider has done wrong and what you would like to happen to put things right. We will then ask you to complete a permission to release information form to allow your provider to give us information about your complaint.
FSCL will investigate your complaint
We will ask your provider to give us their response to your complaint, together with all the information we need to investigate. We will send all this information to you.
We are likely to talk to you and your provider to discuss options for resolving your complaint. We may be able to help you both agree to a resolution you can accept.
We will try to resolve your complaint
If we uphold the complaint, we aim to return you to the position you would have been in before the events you are complaining about happened.
We can award compensation of up to $500,000 for financial loss – this is money you have lost as a direct result of your provider’s actions or inaction.
We can also award compensation of up to $10,000 for non-financial loss, like stress, inconvenience, and disruption to plans. You can find out more in our compensation guide.
If your complaint is not resolved
If you and your provider can’t agree on how to resolve your complaint, our Financial Ombudsman will review all the information and give you her preliminary decision.
If both parties accept the preliminary decision, we may ask you to sign a settlement form or agreement and the complaint will end there.
If one party (or both parties) does not accept the preliminary decision, the Financial Ombudsman will consider what both parties have to say about the preliminary decision and she will give her final decision on the complaint.
The final decision
You do not have to accept the final decision. If you disagree with the decision, you can take your complaint to any other avenue that may be available, for example, the Disputes Tribunal.
If you accept the final decision, your provider must accept it. We will ask you to sign a settlement form or agreement. This brings your complaint to an end, and you cannot take your complaint anywhere else.
