Frequently Asked Questions

In this increasingly competitive world organisations find they need to interact more with the users of their products and services. An essential element of service provision is accountability to the public. We are all human and make mistakes from time to time. This is not a problem as long as mistakes are realised, redressed and improvements are made for the future.

Research shows that nearly half of us will never make a complaint, mainly because we do not want the hassle or simply do not know how to go about it. This needs to change, not to turn us all into moaning ninnies but because organisations themselves welcome complaints. They are a gift, an opportunity to improve the service they provide and to retain customer loyalty rather than lose them to a rival.

howtocomplain.com exists to help citizens seek redress. Complaints procedures are often difficult to track down and even when they are found can seem very complicated and confusing. Equally it is not obvious where to look to find out what rights we all have as consumers. This site aims to bring all this information under one umbrella, providing a one-stop source of information for citizens wanting to make a complaint. howtocomplain.com aims to make it easier for you still by providing contact details for organisations, regulators and advice centres and by allowing you to communicate your complaints, concerns and issues to the relevant people online where possible.

howtocomplain.com is completely independent and does not represent any third party. We are here to provide a facility to benefit all.

So don’t bottle up those frustrations - communicate your complaints. Often you will be surprised by the response, you will feel a lot better for doing it and at the end of the day everyone benefits.

howtocomplain.com exists for your use and it is what you make it. The more you use it the better the service will become. We would love to hear your feedback regarding what we might be doing wrong or what we can improve on. So once you've had a good look around why not send us some comments. You can do this by clicking here.

A free, easy to use and one-stop service that enables you to find out all the information you need (including who to complain to) and to submit your complaint online. By using howtocomplain.com you become part of a community rather than a lone voice and as such you have a better chance of your complaint being heard and dealt with properly. By consolidating the information we gather we can help change the way organisations deal with people and help them improve their services to the public. So by using this facility you can help others and they in turn can help you.

3. What’s in it for organisations?

Complaints are valuable to any organisation that provides goods or services to the public. Complaints are a valuable source of feedback and indicate areas in need of improvement. Furthermore, complainers seeking redress are effectively offering organisations the opportunity to retain and increase the loyalty of customers. howtocomplain.com channels complaints to the right person within an organisation, using the convenience and efficiency of email. This helps to save time and money whilst improving the relationship with a customer. howtocomplain.com offers companies and organisations a variety of customised products and services that can complement and improve your current complaint-handling mechanisms. We can even design and implement these mechanisms online. See our brochure for more information.

howtocomplain.com makes money by providing customised products and services to organisations. howtocomplain.com can help organisations hear their customers by providing customised products and services that complement and improve their current complaint-handling mechanisms. We manage channels of communication to ensure that information is sent and received in the most efficient format for all concerned. See our brochure for more information.

about howtocomplain.com's service

5. How does it work?

There are three easy steps to submitting a complaint: Firstly select the organisation you wish to complain about. Secondly select the level of your complaint and hence who you complain to. Thirdly fill in our specially designed form and send it. We have developed a personal mailbox for each user to store complaints made. Ultimately this will enable automatic escalation of a complaints and detailed tracking of them.

No, howtocomplain.com is an entirely free service, as it should be.

We use a wide variety of sources for our information including various government departments and agencies, consumer watchdogs and the organisations themselves. We then filter and present this information in a format which is easy to follow and use. Complaints procedures can be very difficult to track down and even more difficult to understand and we are here to help you navigate through them.

making a complaint

9. What do I do if the organisation I want to complain to is not in your database?

If the organisation you want to complain to is not in the howtocomplain.com database, don't worry. Our database is continually growing so please do inform us of the organisation name and we will do our best to add it to the database. You can still apply the principles detailed in the complaints procedures page relevant to your type of complaint e.g. if it is about an item of clothing bought, review the complaints procedures for 'clothing and shoes' in the 'retail and shopping' section. Find the contact details (should be on the receipt) for the relevant organisation and send a letter or email, based on our complaint letter template. Do keep howtocomplain.com informed of your progress. If you are still unsure you can send an e-mail to enquiries@howtocomplain.com and we will try and help.

10. What do I do if I can't find the exact type of product or service that I want to complain about?

howtocomplain.com is constantly updating information and its databases. In the meantime, you can still apply the principles detailed in the complaints procedures page relevant to your type of complaint e.g. if it is about an item you have bought, review the complaints procedures for the closest product type under 'retail and shopping' section. Find the contact details for the relevant organisation (should be on the receipt) and send a letter or email, based on our complaint letter template. Do keep howtocomplain.com informed of your progress. If you are still unsure you can send an e-mail to enquiries@howtocomplain.com and we will try and help.

11. Do you have online contact details for all the companies on the database?

We have the online contact details of most of the organisations on the database. You will notice that we provide postal and telephone contact details for most of the others. We are currently working with the larger corporations to establish the correct channels for the large variety of departments and subsidiaries. Many ombudsmen require the signature of a complainant to carry the investigation forward and therefore can only receive official complaints by post.

12. What if I don’t want to send my complaint by e-mail?

If you would rather send a complaint by post or would rather speak to someone on the telephone we do in many cases supply you with the necessary contact details. There is a complaint letter template which you can download and write yourself and there are plenty of tips and general guides in the General Advice section that can help you.

Most organisations will want some kind of evidence regarding the product or service in question. Most of the time you should try and include in your complaint (and we will prompt you for this) information related to you and the product/service. For example: time and place, rough cost, your customer number or account number of you have one and a receipt/invoice number. If you are really keen you can attach a scanned image of the relevant receipt or invoice but this is never really necessary as they should all contain unique reference or identity numbers. Remember you should never send originals should you decide to use the post.

If you have not received a reply we recommend that you either re-submit your complaint or take your complaint to the next level. We are currently developing an automated mechanism that will prompt you to either re-submit or escalate your complaint after a certain time period.

We provide details of your options regarding escalation of your complaint. In most cases after several attempts have been made at local resolution (i.e. with the organisation) we will suggest you speak to the correct regulatory body or an advisory service. In many cases this may be your local Trading Standards office, other departments within Local Government or a National Ombudsman for example. Where possible you will also be able to escalate your complain online. Sometimes of course you may not have a case and will have to accept an offer or decision that has been made. The important thing is that you understand why a decision has been made and that your rights have not been ignored. We have a know your rights section on this site so you can access the relevant information.

about your information

In order to submit a complaint online or to contribute to our forums we do require registration. This need only take a few seconds, you only have to do it once and it involves a little basic information. There are two main reasons to register: Firstly to protect the site from misuse and secondly to keep contact details if we need to chase up a complaint for you. We also encourage you to register fully, which involves filling in a form and takes 2-3 minutes. You do not need to do this but it will help us help you and others by giving us the ammunition to drive improvements in the provision of services and by campaigning on particular issues.

Your personal information will never be revealed to any third party without your express permission, except when we give an organisation you are directly complaining to your name and contact details. We do aim to provide organisations with some reports containing aggregated data related to complaints. We stress again that no personal information will ever be revealed. For more information on this please read our Privacy Statement.

We take the issue of data protection very seriously. We are registered with the Information Commissioner and take great precautions to keep all personal and complaint information safe. To find out more please read our Privacy Statement.

...and finally

19. What if I want to complain about you?

In keeping with our mission, it is of course the case that we welcome any suggestions or complaints that you may have about us. Please use the use the feedback page by clicking this link to send us any suggestions or complaints. Please do not use this method to send your complaints regarding other institutions, as we simply could not cope!

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