The Financial Ombudsman Service has warned people to be wary of employing agents to act on their behalf in pursuing complaints. Some can be expensive and exploit vulnerable people. Or they may set up with a lot of publicity and then disappear.

The Financial Ombudsman Service says

Our helpline staff are trained to make it easy for consumers to make it easy for consumers to understand how the system works, and how to use it. We help with form-filling, and hold their hands all the way through.

No one needs special expertise to bring their case to us - certainly not the help of a paid adviser.

If consumers choose to employ a professional to present a case to us, they will almost certainly have to pay the costs themselves.

However, this is not always true. People who complain themselves may sometimes be tripped up by complex rules. Professional complaint handlers say they have a higher success rate but the ombudsman service disputes this. And the hardest mistake to spot in your file is the piece of paper that should be there but isn't.

The FSA also warns about complaint handlers. It chooses to call them "professional complaint pursuers", which is quite clever, because the phrase is actually neutral, but pursuers could make you think of ambulance chasers, with all the bad vibes that has.

Lawyers

The Sunday Telegraph reports mounting concern over lawyers who are "forever in the newspapers but never in court".

Our view: The ombudsman does not pay lawyers' feess and it will not consider cases going through the legal process and you can always go to law afterwards. One lawyer described this feature as a"free pot".

Don't rush to law.

Financial advisers

Most financial advisers do not focus on this area, and they are not the automatic place to turn to.

Finance victims verdict

This is not as clear cut as the ombudsman service would like.

Some confident or very angry people want to fight their own way through. Many others will have a go if they have a bit of guidance and moral support. This self-help site aims to provide that.

Many other people will be completely confused by the whole process. We suspect this is particularly true of lots of people who were mis-sold endowment mortgages.

The sites run by the FSA and the Consumers Association are quite good on how to start a complaint, but they don't take you beyond first base.

Some people will need an advocate on their side right through the process, someone who understands which elements of the complaint to stress and which are irrelevant. But remember, you will have to meet the fee payment.

Sometimes a complainant's passing remark is the key that unlocks the real problem. Sometimes the key to the complaint is a piece of paper which isn't there! We don't recommend any particular complaints handler, but welcome feedback.