StepEx

StepEx Complaints Policy

If you are unhappy with the finance StepEx Lender Ltd ("StepEx", "we") provides, you can complain to us free of charge. If we do not resolve your complaint, you may be able to refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Who this policy covers

This policy covers complaints from our customers and applicants, and from anyone acting for them, about our consumer credit activities: applications, lending decisions, credit agreements, repayments, collections and credit reporting.

What counts as a complaint

A complaint is any expression of dissatisfaction, spoken or written, whether justified or not, about a financial service we provided or failed to provide, where you say you have suffered, or may suffer, financial loss, material distress or material inconvenience.

How to make a complaint

You can complain:

A complaint made in any other way, for example in a reply to one of our monitored emails, is still a complaint and is handled under this policy.

Someone else can complain for you. Before we discuss your account with them, we need your authority, or evidence that they are legally entitled to act for you, such as a power of attorney.

If you need us to communicate with you differently because of a disability, tell us and we will make reasonable adjustments.

What to tell us

What happened, when, and what you'd like us to do to put it right. Send any evidence you have. You don't have to send anything more for your complaint to be looked at.

What happens after you complain

We send you a written acknowledgement promptly. After that, we keep you informed of progress until we send our final response.

If we resolve your complaint by the close of the third business day after we receive it, we may instead send you a written confirmation that it is resolved. It tells you that you may be able to refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

We investigate your complaint fairly and impartially and decide it on the evidence. Where we find we got something wrong, we put it right in a way that is fair, and we do so promptly.

Our final response

By the end of eight weeks after we receive your complaint, we send you in writing either:

  • our final response, giving our decision on each point you raised, our reasons, and anything we will do to put things right; or
  • an explanation of why we cannot yet send our final response and when we expect to, which also tells you that you can refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service now.

Both tell you how to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, and the final response tells you the time limit for doing so.

Your complaint is closed when we send our final response, or earlier if you tell us in writing that you accept a response we have sent or you withdraw your complaint.

Complaints about your course or another firm

We provide the finance; your education provider provides the course. Under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 we may be answerable for what your provider told you before you signed your agreement with us, and in some cases for problems with the course – depending on the cost of the course and the nature of the complaint. A complaint to us about your course or your provider is handled under this policy, and we may ask the provider for its account. To do this, we may send the provider the parts of your complaint, and of our later correspondence with you, that concern the course or the provider, and tell it the outcome of those parts.

If your complaint is about another financial firm, we may forward it to that firm. If we do, we tell you promptly why, and give you that firm's contact details. We still answer any part of the complaint that is about us.

The Financial Ombudsman Service

If you are unhappy with our final response, or we have not sent one within eight weeks, you may be able to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. It is free and independent of StepEx. You normally need to refer your complaint within six months of the date of our final response.

Records and learning from complaints

We keep a record of each complaint and what we did to resolve it for at least three years from the date we received it. We look for causes of complaints that recur or may affect other customers, and correct them where it is reasonable to do so. We report complaints to the Financial Conduct Authority as its rules require.