While catching up on my reading, I gasped when I read this copy of the Ombudsman News.
The first case is the type of scenario at work that leaves me asking the question ‘why?’ A bank employee changes a customer’s name and lists his occupation as ‘professional shoplifter’ You can only imagine what the name was changed to… While you may feel an initial sense of pleasure of mocking someone while changing their name and occupation, it is only a matter of time before it catches up with you - is it worth it?
The second case always makes me sad and I know that I can never work in complaint handling full time as I would pay out on cases like this. A grandson (who has now gone to jail) stole his gran’s cashline card and pin number. He had found the well-hidden card during a number of visits to house and stole the card just after she had suffered a stroke and while the family were waiting for the ambulance to arrive. He took the money while she was in hospital. The bank said she had acted negligently. It is difficult to defend this, the grandson is jailed for theft but the bank blames a stroke-affected pensioner.
People behave in a funny way.
