Network Sesame has again come out top as the most complained about advice firm, although numbers of cases against it were down, according to the Financial Ombudsman Service's (FOS) half yearly figures published today.
The network received 197 new complaints between January and June this year, although numbers were down 8% on the previous six months and 33% year on year, when the advice firm received 292 complaints.
Sesame was followed by restricted network Openwork, which received 73 new consumer gripes, down 28% and 49% on the previous six months and the same period last year respectively.
St James's Place closely followed with 77 complaints brought against it but a higher uphold rate of 42% - almost twice as high as Openwork's 21% and Sesame's 26%.
Personal Touch received 55 complaints, of which 29% were successful for the claimants, while Hargreaves Lansdown Asset Management was complained about 48 times in the period.
Notably the firm had the lowest uphold rate, at 17%.
Positive Solutions followed in fifth place with 44 cases, although two thirds of complaints against the firm were upheld (62%) - more than any other advice firm on the list.
Interactive Investor closed the league table with 43 claims against it - the only firm to have received more complaints in this period than the second half of last year (up 39%). The firm had an uphold rate of 26%.
Of the listed seven only Openwork and Interactive Investor saw their uphold rates drop in the last six months compared with the six months before.
TenetConnect was the only adviser to drop from the list in the past half year, after entering last year following a flurry of pension complaints.
The ombudsman's figures only lists firms that have received at least 30 new cases and have had resolved at least 30 cases in the six-month period, making up around 95% of cases handled by the FOS.
