The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has received hundreds of complaints about the activities of claims management companies (CMCs) – so-called ‘ambulance chasers’.

The complaints were revealed in the first report issued by FOS in relation to CMCs, since it took over responsibility for them in April.

The ombudsman also released figures for other complaints for the first three months of the financial year.

The data revealed that there were a total of 372 complaints relating to CMCs, of which 262 were concerned with PPI and 110 were listed as “other products and services”. Of the complaints 211 were new cases and a total of 38% of complaints were upheld.

The report read: “Since 1 April 2019 we have been able to consider complaints about claims management companies (CMCs).

“We’ve published data about these complaints in line with the Financial Ombudsman Service’s established approach to quarterly complaints data for financial products and services.

“This means we’ve only published figures for claim activities where we’ve had 30 new and 30 resolved cases during in the reporting period.

“We’ve shown the number of new enquiries, new cases and ombudsman referrals, along with the percentage of cases upheld in favour of the consumer for the different claim activities undertaken by CMCs.”

Elsewhere the report showed that in the first three months of this financial year the ombudsman received 136,681 new enquiries and 70,304 new complaints – with 12,538 complaints passed to an ombudsman for a final decision.

On average 30% of the complaints were resolved.

Our table below shows figures for other selected products or services for the first three months of the financial year.