The awful customer service provided by the banks has been exposed, yet again, by the Financial Ombudsman Service. Their recent report shows that the banks not only receive more complaints than other financial organisations, but they have become surprisingly awful at dealing with them.

Historically the Ombudsman has upheld at least 33% of consumer complaints – but now it’s risen to at least 66% and sometimes as high as 95%. This tells the banks something they really must listen to.

Mis-sold payment protection insurance which was sold alongside loans and credit cards, head the list of problem areas. However, this must come as no surprise to the banks who merrily continued mis-selling the insurance for years - and now the birds have come home to roost.

If the banks’ complaints departments had been doing their jobs properly, many of the complaints seen by the Ombudsman would never have surfaced in public. As it happens, the banks appear to have decided to tough the situation out and obstruct legitimate complaints, probably in the hope that most of the complainants would get tired and simply give up.

The truth is that if the banks dealt with complaints properly the Ombudsman would never have got involved and now the banks are on the rack. It is difficult to avoid drawing the conclusion that some service and complaints departments at the banks are following a policy of confusion, delaying tactics and simply obstructing off those who complain.

If this is the case, they deserve every bit of bad press they receive and the FSA must levy huge non- compliance fines on them.