The first investigator did not look at the bills in any detail and misquoted what the supplier had told them. The supplier had offered £150 compensation but it was insufficient to make up for all the time I had to put in to contest their incorrect bills on my late mother’s estate. The ombudsman found in my favour but only awarded £100 compensation in the basis that £160 had been deleted from the bill. It hadn’t, even the supplier wasn’t saying that. Along with my wife, I spent days going through the bills and presented the Ombudsman with a spreadsheet on my appeal.
The person looking at the appeal didn’t disagree with my comments but did not increase the award to the full £260 the original assessor thought I had been given.
So, although they found in my favour, I was very unhappy with the way the original service and the appeal had been handled. It felt like the first case handler didn’t have the most basic understanding of maths or the debits and credits on the bills.
I received the second decision at 16.32 on the day of the target for a response, so it’s no surprise that it doesn’t feel properly considered. Probably someone who did not want to breach the target and thought it was more important to go home than give a fair result. It’s clear they support their colleagues even when the colleague made obvious errors. I suppose it’s good for staff morale, but not so much for complainants.
If you don’t agree with the appeal decision you either accept it or lose the award.
I believe they did not meet the disclosure requirements in disputes. They passed my evidence to the supplier but gave none of the supplier’s evidence to me. On the dashboard it looked like their had been no response from the supplier but the decision material showed that their had been communication between the supplier and the case handler. None of that had been passed to me. There were screenshots of the supplier’s account records, which would have helped me to make sense of the erroneous bills. I’ve put in a subject access request.
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