Beat the Lloyds TSB complaint rejection spiral

But angry account holders shown the finger by Lloyds shouldn't give up.

When consumers take their complaint to the independent Financial Ombudsman Service, it upholds 51% in customers' favour against the bank and 38% against its Halifax/Bank of Scotland arm.

These figures are based on statistics for the final six months of last year. The Ombudsman will publish data for the first six months of 2010 in mid-September (see the Financial Fight Back guide).

Lloyds stresses the high rejection rate is distorted by the vast number of unauthorised overdraft charges cases, which were dismissed after banks won the landmark test case on fees last November. The bank points out it upheld 54% of insurance cases during the period.

Almost 2,000 daily complaints

Parent company Lloyds Banking Group receives 1,850 complaints a day from disgruntled customers. In total, 288,717 complaints were made to it during the six months to the end of June.

Fellow taxpayer-backed group Royal Bank of Scotland revealed in April it admitted an error in 80% of the 1,600 complaints it gets every day.

Nationwide has also published figures showing it upheld only 16% of 90,208 banking complaints during the six months to April, but found in favour of 58% of customers once overdraft complaints are excluded.

Banks and building societies must report complaints received for the first half of the year, or similar reporting period, by end of this month.

Santander, which was rated the worst bank for service by MoneySavingExpert.com users this month, is understood to be reporting its figures tomorrow.

What Lloyds says

A Lloyds spokeswoman says: "Our relationship with customers is at the heart of our business and we take feedback seriously.

"Like every organisation we know there are areas where we can improve and we're working with our customers to do that."

She stresses fewer than 1% of customers had complained to it during the first half of the year.

Additional reporting by the Press Association.

Further reading/Key links

Ombudsman guide: Financial Fight Back Full reclaiming guide inc. free template letters: Bank Charges Reclaim mis-sold debt insurance: PPI Reclaiming