Dear Listener

Too many numbers. I don’t often say that. Because in general I believe that we can only understand things we can measure or count. But when you get a list of more than 150 hundred financial firms who between them had tens of thousands of complaints made about them to the Financial Ombudsman Service in six months it is hard to deduce anything meaningful. And it is ever harder to make useful comparisons between the figures for the second half of 2009 – published this week – and for the first half – published last year.

But let’s try. To reduce the figures to something the human brain (or at least mine) can take in I looked just at complaints made (a) to the big High Street banks (including Nationwide) and (b) which were about banking and credit rather than mortgages, investments, insurance etc.

In the first half of 2009 there were a total of 15,464 complaints and in the second half that had risen by more than a third to 20,782. Which sounds bad for the banks. But the percentage resolved in the customer’s favour fell from well above half (58%) to well below (42%). So the number of complaints to the Ombudsman where he or she found in favour of the customer fell slightly from 8939 to 8651. From that we can conclude that more of us are complaining about the banking services of our bank but fewer of us are having that complaint upheld.

In fact with the exception of Barclays and HSBC (two pretty big exceptions!) only a minority of complaints against any of the banks were upheld in the second half of 2009. Whereas in the first half a majority were upheld against all the banks – with the one exception of Nationwide building society.

AND IN THIS WEEK’S MONEY BOX

Another company which offers the chance of getting your debts written off is examined – and not just by us. Can’t say more.

It will come as a big surprise, I know, to learn that a major network of IFAs allowed the level of commission to influence the products they recommended to many of 24,000 customers who will now share £7.8 million redress. Which actually is £325 each. The IFA network would have been fined £2.4 million as well. Except it’s going out of business. So how do you find an IFA you can trust to act in your interest rather than their own?

Fairbanking is an organisation (and would the person who said ‘no it’s not it’s a contradiction in terms’ please shut up or leave? Thanks.)  Anyway, this organisation has found that when you cook up a fair banking product a bit of Saffron leaves a good taste in your wallet.

Banks, banks, banks. Two huge losses and one huge profit. But many building societies also published their results this week. What were they like? Another merger was announced. And so was the end of the state backed Northern Rock guarantee of all your savings. The head of the Building Societies Association talks to me live about all these things.

All that packed into what Radio 4 fondly calls our half hour show. Which actually lasts just 80% of half an hour. Find out what we squeeze in and what gets left in the digital dustbin by listening just after noon on Saturday, or nine pm on Sunday, or on the website www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox at any time. There you can also watch videos, follow up items, read web pieces, download transcripts, follow links, and send us stories or ideas you want us to look into. And of course Have Your Say – on a subject still to be decided.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS Don’t forget the programme preview on Breakfast BBC 1 soon after 0845 on Saturday.

PPS here are the answers to the quiz of two weeks ago which the gremlins stole last week in the hope of winning the prize. Which they didn’t.

(1) A pure silver bullet would be lighter than a pure lead bullet of the same size and shape. A cubic centimetre of lead weighs 11.3g but the same volume of silver weighs only 10.5g. Both figures are for pure metals and the alloys used – especially for lead bullets – may give a different result. So the answer is about the same but lead probably heavier.

(2) The Lone Ranger – an American cowboy on radio in the 1930s and then TV in the 1950s – used silver bullets to shoot bad guys.

(3) Two reasons were given – (a) to make him think of the value of human life (yuk) and (b) because he swore never to kill anyone – even (perhaps especially) bad guys. A silver bullet is harder and more likely to pass through the body rather than spreading out inside it and causing internal injuries.

And the prize? If you got all three right you get permission to feel smug.

e-mail Paul Lewis