BBC - Surge in bank charge complaints

The Financial Ombudsman Service has seen a surge in complaints about bank charges, and is now investigating 1,000 new cases every week.

However, complaints about mortgage endowment policies are now beginning to tail off, it said in its annual report.

Meanwhile, the Ombudsman for Estate Agents, dealt with an 18% rise in complaints to it last year.

The number of investigations it carried out rose to 586, with just more than half of them being upheld.

Bank charges

The number of complaints about banking services investigated by the Financial Ombudsman rose by 47% in the past financial year to 20,000.

"This increase has been driven by the flood of enquiries and complaints about current account charges for customers who go overdrawn without prior authorisation," said its annual report.

By March this year, this barrage of initial complaints - at times running to 3,000 a day - was turning into 500 new formal investigations every week, since then shooting up to about 1,000 a week.

However, the Ombudsman said that in every case it has dealt with so far, the bank has refunded the disputed money, so the service has been unable to made a detailed investigation or decision.

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