Official figures from the Financial Services Authority have revealed that over 7,000 complaints are made about UK banks every day.
According to the FSA customers are unhappy with the poor service and bad financial advice found on the high street. Barclays was shown to be the worst offender, receiving 245,348 complaints from January to June this year, Santander was second with 244,978 complaints, Bank of Scotland third with 115,638 and Lloyds TSB came fourth with 146,846.
NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland, who had 84,300 and 38,100 complaints respectively, were the two banks that upheld the most complaints.
However the FSA divulged that most banks dithered when it came to resolving complaints, not even half of all complaints were dealt with in the appropriate eight week time limit.
Marc Gander of the Consumer Action Group said: “We’re used to banks treating their customers shabbily, however these figures are quite extraordinary. You have to wonder where these billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money are being spent – it’s certainly not on complaints handling.”
The FSA is now considering fining the banks as they deem them to be “fobbing of” customers. Sheila Nicoll, FSA director of conduct policy, said: "Good complaint handling should be the rule, not the exception."