Does anyone have any experience with ADR, banking ombudsman? | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

Loonie,

If it's a good story, sometimes CBC Marketplace will step in and help.

Link ▶ https://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/

Good Luck with it ❗

Dean

Loonie said
Some of the banks no longer work with the Ombudsman for Banking Services. They will only work with a private company. I find it hard to imagine this company will not favour the banks as the banks hire them, bu there it is.

It looks like I am going to have to make a significant formal complaint about RBC, which uses this company.
Does anyone have any experience with them? Or do you know of any resources that will help me with this process?

thanks.

https://bankingombuds.ca/  

Hi Loonie,

I'm not really sure what the main driver is for many of the banks to have switched to ADR Chambers, but the main complaint is that the banks get to choose their preferred provider of final dispute resolution (before the courts, of course, which is always an option). It could be that ADR Chambers is seen as providing more favourable rulings, or it could be that they're cheaper, more nimble, and less bureaucratic. In any event, I suspect their approach to DR is similar to OBSI, so if you're at the stage of needing to take it to DR, it's probably a coin flip as to which is better.

What's the main issue?

Feel free to DM me if you prefer.

n.b. OBSI is still a private entity. It is not a government regulatory body. It is one of two accredited providers of DR services, the other being ADR Chambers. The third party providers of DR services (called external complaints bodies) are accredited and approved by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC). If your complaint is regarding a breach of either of a Voluntary Code of Conduct (i.e., Tied-Selling, Registered Plans, etc.) or a mandatory Regulation (i.e., Access to Basic Banking Services, Access to Funds, Notice of Branch Closures, etc.), then you always have the option of writing to FCAC for consideration by the Commissioner.

Cheers,
Doug

According to CBC: Scotiabank walks away from consumer dispute watchdog OBSI, OBSI ruled in favour of the consumer in about 1 in 5 of the complaints it handled in 2017.

The impression I got is that the goal at both OBSI and ADR Chambers is to produce a report that would be similar to what a court would decide on the complaint. If a customer is unhappy and the complaint doesn't have any legal justification, then the customer is not going receive a report in his/her favour.

For example, in the OBSI case Wire Transfer Instructions Are Precisely Followed, customer lost about $700 in foreign exchange because an incoming US$ wire transfer was deposited to his C$ account instead of his US$ account.

OBSI investigated and did not find in favour of the customer. Legally, the receiving bank is obligated to deposit the wire transfer into the exact bank account that the sender specified. Sender had specified customer's C$ account. The bank correctly converted the incoming US$ to C$ and deposited the C$ to that account.