St. James's Place Wealth Management Plc · DRN-6098072

The complaint Mrs F complains about the service she has received from St. James's Place Wealth Management Plc (SJP). She says it has dealt with her in an unprofessional way, and she has lost confidence in the company. What happened In 2011, Mrs F first started receiving investment services from SJP. Up until 2018/19, Mrs F said she was satisfied with the services received, but after her adviser was changed in 2020, she became progressively more dissatisfied with SJP. In 2024, Mrs F became frustrated as she couldn’t get information (a quarterly statement) she wanted in a timely manner. She was also informed her advisor needed to change again and felt pressured into meeting with another new adviser. ln July 2024, Mrs F was copied into an internal email in error. She was upset by this as she felt she was spoken about in a derogatory fashion. She raised concerns about the unprofessional way in which she was being dealt with as a client. SJP logged the concerns as a complaint. After several holding letters, in March 2025, SJP sent her a response to the complaint. In summary it said: • It acknowledged the upset cause by the email sent and sincerely apologised for the distress this has caused. • She can contact its central admin centre to talk about her plans or make a withdrawal without any perceived pressure of agreeing to a financial review. • She hasn’t been paying any ongoing advice charges for her bond, and the charges for her ISA were switched off in 2024. This is why it is suggested she be referred to SJP Admin for them to action withdrawals, not because the adviser didn’t want to help. • It would like to make an offer of £150; a gesture of goodwill to recognise the time taken to provide a response to the complaint, and for the distress caused. Mrs F responded as she didn’t accept the outcome, and at the same time referred her complaint to this service for an independent review. One of our investigators looked into the complaint. She acknowledged the issues Mrs F had told us about. She thought the reasons SJP had given for changing Mrs F’s adviser were reasonable. But she thought Mrs F had suffered upset due to the email error. Overall, she found the offer of compensation to be fair and reasonable. Mrs F responded, as she didn’t think the investigator had properly investigated her concerns and hadn’t fully understood the complaint. Mrs F provided further submissions. In summary she said: • Her wider concerns about SJPs lack of professionalism and disregard for GDPR

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haven’t been considered. SJP sent her, in error, copies of another named clients financial matters. This caused her concern that her details might be shared with others. This issue is critical to her lack of trust and confidence in the company, and also in SJPs seeming lack of regard to minimising these kinds of errors. • After her initial adviser went into semi-retirement, she was moved about from one financial adviser to another over a 3-4 year period, and got progressively more dissatisfied as she was not sure what exactly she was paying for, and had no adviser whom she could trust. SJP kept pressing her to meet with yet another adviser, and she subsequently found out it couldn’t charge her additional fees unless she did so. She made her dissatisfaction known. The derogatory internal emails sent to her by mistake shows an appallingly unprofessional way in which to deal with a client, and feels this directly related to the fact that she was not paying extra fees because she did not want a meeting with an unknown/unfamiliar adviser. • In March 2025, she tried to find a remedy in order to get the relationship back on track, but SJP rejected this. She was therefore left with no adviser between August 2024 and April 2025 whilst she awaited an outcome to her complaint. Having an adviser to look after her portfolio and advise her on investments is very important to her as they serve to support her retirement. While it is speculative, in the year in which she had no dedicated adviser, this may have negatively impacted her investments. After further correspondence with SJP on the matters Mrs F raised. SJP issued another response to her specifically covering the issues relating to an email she received in May 2022, which included another customers’ personal information. SJP acknowledged the data breach and apologised. It also made a further offer of £150 to recognise the time taken to provide a response, and by way of an apology. The investigator wrote to Mrs F to explain the combined offers meant a total of £300 in compensation was available to her. She said she thought this was fair compensation and in line with what we would expect in similar circumstances. Mrs F didn’t accept this, and requested an ombudsman reaches a decision on her complaint. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. I acknowledge Mrs F hasn’t had the best service from SJP in recent years. I have fully considered everything she has told us about, so want her to be reassured I have taken account of everything she has told us about when coming to my decision. There are two specific instances relating to errors in emails sent that Mrs F has highlighted to emphasise the standard of service she has receive from SJP in recent years. The first involved Mrs F receiving the financial matters of another customer, and the second involved her receiving an internal email that made references to her in a way that she found derogatory. SJP has admitted both emails were sent in error. It apologised to Mrs F for its mistakes both at the time she raised her concerns and as part of its complaint responses. It offered her compensation. She was also sent flowers. While I note that she considers this to be somewhat sexist, but I accept this was intended as a positive gesture. It is clear that SJP’s mistakes here have impacted Mrs F in a practical and emotional way. I acknowledge that receiving another person’s personal financial details, did cause Mrs F

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worry that her details might be shared with others. I also understand why she was upset by the contents of the internal email. This all caused her to be concerned about the professionalism of the SJP staff she had been dealing with. The combination of these issues has contributed to her losing trust and confidence in SJP. I appreciate these are not just one- off issues, but a series of events that has led to unhappiness with the service she is receiving from SJP, at a time when she was already having concerns. I think it is appropriate that compensation is paid in respect of the impact Mrs F has suffered due to SJP’s errors. I will return to this later in my decision. I have also considered Mrs F’s submission in relation to the impact of SJP changing her adviser on more than one occasion since 2020. I also note her comments about not having an advisor for around a year following her complaint being made. SJP has provided an explanation for needing to change Mrs F’s adviser on two occasions. It said the initial adviser, due to his age, reduced his workload in 2020. The replacement adviser who took over until 2024 was in place until he left the business. So I accept SJP has provided reasonable grounds for having to make these changes, and the situation is not something that could be easily avoided. I acknowledge Mrs F’s comments about her not having an adviser from August 2024. This occurred while she was waiting for a response to her complaint. I haven’t seen that SJP declined a request to provide Mrs F with an advisory service during this time, but equally it isn’t clear why it took so long for the complaint to be answered leaving things up in the air. I also appreciate that due to her previous experiences, Mrs F was reluctant to engage with further SJP advisors. She did make a proposal to SJP to re-engage and asked it to waive fees and look at whether she had suffered losses during the time she didn’t have an advisor. While I appreciate why Mrs F made the suggestion, I haven’t found SJP has acted unfairly by not agreeing. The end result of the situation is that there was a breakdown in the relationship between Mrs F and SJP. While clearly there have been problems, I’m satisfied that SJP was prepared to offer Mrs F further advisory services if she required them, but I accept the ongoing complaint has made this more difficult. I’m unaware how Mrs F’s investments performed during this period, but I don’t think there is grounds to suggest SJP should be held responsible for any decline in value. Lastly, I’ve gone on to consider what SJP needs to do to put things right for Mrs F. As explained above, I think it does need to pay her compensation for the distress and inconvenience she has suffered due to errors it has made. It has offered her compensation totalling £300. I recognise how strongly Mrs F feels about her complaint, so I realise she may be disappointed by my decision. But overall, I find the offer of £300 to be fair and reasonable and in line with what I would award in the circumstances. I therefore direct SJP to pay this amount in resolution of the complaint. My final decision I uphold this complaint and require St. James's Place Wealth Management Plc to pay Mrs F £300 in compensation. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mrs F to accept or reject my decision before 22 April 2026. Daniel Little Ombudsman

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