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Client Complaint Information
Clients of a mutual fund dealer who are not satisfied with a financial product or service have a right to make a complaint and to seek resolution of the problem. If you have a complaint, these are some steps you can take.
- Your complaint should first be explained to your financial advisor. The person who sold you the product or service will solve most problems quickly.
- Contact your mutual fund dealer. Member firms are responsible to you, the investor, for monitoring the actions of their advisors to ensure that they are in compliance with the legislation, rules and guidelines governing their activities.
Some problems are easily solved by a phone call. Some matters can be resolved through the Branch Manager. The dealer's Compliance Department will investigate any complaint that you initiate in writing and respond back to you with the results of their investigation.
- Contact the Mutual Fund Dealers Associations of Canada (MFDA), which is the self regulatory organization in Canada to which your mutual fund dealer belongs. The MFDA investigates complaints about mutual fund dealers and their advisors, and takes enforcement action where appropriate. There is no cost to clients for referring a complaint to the MFDA. The MFDA can be contacted:
- By telephone in Toronto at
1(416)361-6332, or toll free at
1(888)466-6332;
- By e-mail at complaints@mfda.ca; or
- In writing, using the complaint form which available on the MFDA website at http://www.mfda.ca/
- Contact the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI), an organization independent of the MFDA, government, and the financial services industry. OBSI provides an independent and impartial process for the investigation and resolution of complaints about the provision of financial services to clients. OBSI can make a non-binding recommendation that your firm compensate you (up to $350,000) if it determines that you have been treated unfairly, taking into account the criteria of good financial services and business practice, relevant codes of practice or conduct, industry regulation and the law. The OBSI process is free of charge and is confidential OBSI can be contacted at:
- By telephone in Toronto at
1(416)287-2877, or toll free at
1(888)451-4519; or
- By e-mail at ombudsman@obsi.ca;
- Retaining a lawyer to assist you with the complaint
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