I have had bad experiences with ombudsmen in the past and so was rather skeptical, but thought it worth a try to at least have some bilateral mediation.
Regrettably, it was a frustrating waste of a lot of time and just another round of complaint mismanagement, and there was no mediation.
The ombudsman merely defended the bank as its own lawyers would do, basically claiming that there needed to be a written order to put my money back in the market, as if this were my fault.
The fact that that the adviser ignored my clear and repeated written requests to do so was also ignored.
It was her responsibility and not mine to submit this order to the fund management.
The ombudsman further claimed I had provided him with insufficient information, but closed the file, refusing to communicate further. In fact, the internal regulations specified that the ombudsman could request further information and documentation in order to investigate.
There is an important epilogue to this tale.
Parallel to this process, my academic work involved editing papers on some highly relevant marketing issues.
One of these dealt with customer reacquisition strategies, and explained how much better it is to retain or recover customers than to lose them through dissatisfaction and to have to find new ones.
It would seem that certain players in the financial industry believe in doing the diametrical opposite. Principles of ethics and sound marketing are completely abandoned in the desire to evade liability in the short run.
Brian Bloch is a freelance journalist based in Germany
