Impartial Service Group

Investor advocate isn't perfect, but it's worth fighting for

No one is more friendless than small investors when they’re in a dispute they can’t resolve with a big financial firm.

Really, their only ally is the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments, which decides in favour of the financial industry more often than it does for individuals. Somehow, though, OBSI has annoyed some of the country’s biggest financial companies.

Frankly, it’s hard to imagine a stronger endorsement of the job OBSI is doing. And yet, this court of last resort for the small investor is at risk of being sidelined into irrelevancy.

Financial industry regulators have helped to beat back a recent offensive against OBSI by a group of firms that includes RBC Dominion Securities, TD Waterhouse, Manulife Financial and Investors Group. But a potential new risk has emerged through a federal government initiative affecting dispute-handling in the banking sector.

You may never have heard of OBSI and you probably won’t ever need it. But if you value the idea of having a no-cost, impartial place to take unresolved disputes with the financial industry, take a moment to tell regulators and government you back OBSI (see sidebar).

OBSI, founded in 1996, is funded by the financial industry and run by a board with a majority of independent members. This organization is not perfect. Bogged down by complaints from investors who got burned in the 2008-09 stock market crash, it’s not turning around cases as fast it’s supposed to. And from the investor’s point of view, OBSI takes the side of the industry in roughly two-thirds of cases.

“They appear to take the position of the broker at face value, and they grill our clients like crazy,” said John Hollander, an Ottawa lawyer who specializes in cases of allegedly wronged investors and has had some dealings with OBSI.

Alternatives

Even this level of investor advocacy is apparently too much for some of the biggest names on Bay Street. In an e-mail, an RBC spokeswoman said the bank strongly supports the existence of an independent dispute-resolution service, but it’s not satisfied with OBSI. “We do feel there are significant flaws with OBSI’s governance, service level and complaint adjudication process, which ultimately compromise its ability to appropriately address investor concerns,” she wrote.

RBC dropped out of the banking side of OBSI a couple of years ago (you can choose to use an alternative on the banking side, but not for investing disputes) and now uses an arbitration service called ADR Chambers, where retired judges, lawyers and dispute-resolution professionals rule on cases. Recently, RBC and some other firms asked regulators for leave to use ADR for investing disputes and were rebuffed.

Anyone had to Deal with Impartial Services Group before or DCX ...

So I have still been fighting with chrysler over my truck and the repeated check engine lights. P0174. In total it has been six months and over ten visits to the dealer. I took it to a second dealer after a replacement PCM from the first dealer did not fix the issue. They put new cat/ypipe on it and they said readings looked as if the code would come back but that chrysler rec'd driving it. Two days later code is back. So back to the new dealer which has been ten times more helpful than the first. much more detailed paperwork better explanations of reasoning for what they did. They say that they can't find the problem need a technician from chrysler to come out. they'll be in touch in a week or so with a time when the guy will be out. Well chrysler in their infinite ****ing wisdom declines to send a tech to teh second dealer because they didn't sell the truck. So i gotta take it back to the first dealer who dicked around with the truck for five months and go nowhere with it, they have to call DCX to get the tech... so try to get them to do it to no avail. won't return calls, want to work on truck again not call chrysler tech which I do not want. I don't want anyone from there touching this damn thing. So i call chrysler customer care and they call the first dealer and teh first dealer's service manager promises to call me in between a two hour time frame last thursday... no call. Contact chrysler again and the second dealer and the truck goes in to second dealer on monday.. Chrysler now says yes we can send a tech out to the new dealer but we arn't going to unless the check engine light is on.... the light comes on and goes out after a day or two. So it's like i'm getting the infernal dick in the rear on this it's ridiculous. So I get a call monday from a lady who claims to be a customer retention manager for chrysler. I give her the rundown of all the issues and such she says she will contact both dealers and service managers.. she calls me again thursday to say go pick up the truck.. this is when i found out that chrysler won't send a tech out unless the light is on which is total bull****. I called her back to try and get some plan on how this is gonna go down and turns out she doesn't work for chrysler but works for impartial services group according to her voicemail. Does anyone know who the hell i'm dealing with at this point I left her a voicmail today and no return call at this point so I'm totally confused.

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