Not upheld: Complaints handling failures complaint against M & G Securities Limited

Decision detail

Summary

Mrs W complained that M&G transferred all of her ISA funds to a third party when she had only requested one fund be transferred. She believed M&G should have verified the transfer request against her prior phone call and should have contacted her before proceeding. The third party later admitted it had made an error in submitting the transfer request. M&G argued it acted on the electronic instructions it received from the third party and paid £100 compensation for poor complaint handling. The ombudsman found M&G did not make any mistakes as it correctly followed the transfer instructions provided by the third party on the electronic system, and determined the £100 compensation was fair and reasonable for the complaint handling issues.

The Ombudsman's reasoning

The ombudsman found that M&G acted correctly by following the electronic transfer instructions it received from the third party on the transfer system. Although Mrs W had called M&G beforehand to explain her intention, the official transfer request was inputted by the third party and contained instructions to transfer all four funds. M&G had no ambiguity in the instructions it received and was not responsible for the error made by the third party. The ombudsman determined that M&G's role was to execute the transfer efficiently based on the instructions given, which it did. The ombudsman found M&G's £100 compensation for poor complaint handling to be fair and reasonable.

How this compares

Source

Read the original decision on the Financial Ombudsman Service website