How we handle complaints

The procedure outlined below applies to all complaints.

Acknowledging your complaint

We will acknowledge your complaint in writing within five working days of receiving it. If we receive a complaint outside normal working hours, it is treated as if it had arrived at the start of the next working day. In some cases, five working days may be enough for Fidelity to investigate and provide you with a full written response to your complaint within your acknowledgment letter.

Complaints that need further investigation

If we do not reach a decision in time to include it in your acknowledgement letter we will continue to investigate, in order to find out:

• What’s gone wrong
• Whether our service has fallen below the standard we strive to achieve
• What needs to be done to put things right

No later than four weeks after we received your complaint we will write to you again. If we cannot give you the results of our investigation yet, our letter will explain why we are not yet in a position to do so and tell you when we will next contact you.

In the unlikely event that we have not finished investigating your complaint eight weeks after we received it, we will send you a further letter to:

• Explain why we have not been able to reach a decision
• Let you know when you can expect our final decision

When we send you a letter to say we have dealt with your complaint, we will give the reasons for any conclusions we have come to.

Mutual Respect

We aim to provide the best possible service at all times however; we recognise that there may be occasions when we fall short of your expectations. We understand it can be frustrating if something has gone wrong, there has been delay or when we are simply not able to offer the solution you require. We will always do our best to resolve these situations as quickly as possible.

Equally we ask our customers to be respectful of them. We will not accept:

• Aggressive or threatening behaviour
• Personal verbal abuse
• Derogatory remarks
• Inflammatory statements or offensive language
• Remarks of a racial or discriminatory nature

While rare, treating our staff in this way is not acceptable and we will take active steps to prevent future occurrences, including where necessary, placing restrictions on the service we are able to offer. These restrictions can range from ceasing the call, permanent removal of the phone service or insisting the customer takes their business elsewhere/closes their account, and will be dependent on the severity of the issue.