Think before dealing with RAMS, BOQ, Suncorp and ANZ for home loans

Rams Financial Group featured prominently in home loan disputes dealt with by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) during the 2017/18 financial year.

FOS received 43,684 disputes from consumers of financial services in the year to June, up 11% on the previous year.

There were 11,295 credit disputes, accounting for 43% of the disputes accepted into case management – an increase of 3% over the previous year. The main products in dispute were credit cards and home loans.

Rather than publish the raw number of disputes for each financial institution, FOS provides a measure called “chance of a dispute coming to FOS”, which shows the number of disputes relative to the size of the business.

For example in home financing, Rams Financial Group had the highest chance of a home loan dispute, with a rating of 66, meaning the likelihood of a Rams home loan customer taking a dispute to FOS is 66 in 100,000.

Other home lenders with relatively high dispute ratings were Bank of Queensland, at 45.3, Suncorp (39.6), ANZ (37.4), Bankwest (36.3) as well as Bendigo and Adelaide Bank (33.9).

Another indicator of user dissatisfaction with Rams is that almost a third of those who left reviews for Rams services gave them 1 star, with the most common complaints being a lack of communication, unexpected fees and rate hikes that were higher than advertised rates.