No response to your complaint? Silence has a deadline

The short answer

Count from the date you complained. When the waiting period for your sector passes: eight weeks for most things, six for phone and broadband, fifteen business days for payment complaints, you can go to the ombudsman and say they didn’t respond.

What to do today: find the date you complained and work out when their time runs out. If it already has, skip to the escalation steps below.

How long do you have to wait?

Their time, from the day they received your complaint

A payment complaint: a scam, a wrong transfer
Banks and payment firms15 business days
Phone, broadband and TV
Complaints raised on or after 8 April 20266 weeks
Almost everything else, including banks and insurers
Financial Ombudsman and most schemes8 weeks
Energy
Or sooner, with a deadlock letter8 weeks

The clock runs from when they received the complaint and not from when they acknowledged it, and not from your chase.

One more thing the rules require: if a financial firm reaches week eight without answering, they may send a “we need more time” letter. If they do, that letter must explain why they need more time and when they expect to answer your complaint. It should also tell you that you can now go to the ombudsman anyway. More time is theirs to ask for, not yours to grant.

You should note that this article uses the 8-week rule as an example because this is the time limit that most companies have. If you are dealing with a company that has a different timescale, then you will need to adjust your timings accordingly.

Chase once, properly

One written chase, around the four-week mark, does two jobs: sometimes it prompts a reply, but also it puts the delay on the record that the ombudsman will eventually read.

“It is four weeks since my complaint of [date] and I have had no response. Please let me know when I will have your final response.”

Once is enough. Repeated phone calls and emails don’t add anything to the process, and it just wastes your time. Chase, diarise the deadline, and get on with your life until it arrives.

The day the clock runs out

Gather two documents

Your original complaint and your chaser emails/letter that show the dates. That’s the whole case file for a referral.
Fill in the ombudsman’s form and say they didn’t respond

The form asks whether you’ve had a final response. The answer is no, and that their time has passed.
“I complained on [date]. More than [eight weeks / the required period] have passed and the firm has not sent a final response. I am referring the complaint on that basis.”
Let them wake up if they want to

Firms often produce a sudden final response once the ombudsman writes to them. That is fine because you can settle directly at any point, and nothing about referring stops them paying you.

Does silence hurt your case?

No, if anything the asymmetry runs your way. You arrive with a dated complaint, a dated chaser email/letter, and a dated nothing. They arrive having ignored a customer for two months and now owing the ombudsman an explanation. You lose nothing by escalating without letting the company know, and waiting longer earns you nothing at all.

Don’t restart the clock by accident

Re-sending the complaint “fresh”. If you think it got lost and send it again as new, you’ve handed them a new day one. Always anchor to the original: “to confirm my complaint of [date]” keeps the first clock running.

Treating a late reply as a reset. If they surface at week nine with questions, answer if you want to, but their late engagement doesn’t pause your right to refer, and the eight weeks don’t start again. You can talk to them and the ombudsman in parallel.

What if you’re not sure it ever arrived?

Check what you have: a sent email is proof in itself; a web form is only proof if you screenshotted it or got a reference. If you genuinely can’t show it arrived, send it again today with the confirming line above. If you can prove the original, the original date stands; if you can’t, today becomes day one. Annoying, but better discovered now than with the ombudsman.

And plainly: complaints made only by phone or social media are the ones that vanish. If that’s what happened, put it in writing today and reference the call — “to confirm my complaint made by phone on [date]”. There’s a full template in how to write a complaint letter.

The one thing silence never does

It never starts your six-month escalation window. That clock only runs from a final response, and no letter means no clock. So, there’s no six-month panic here.

But don’t read that as permission to sit on it for a year. The outer limits (six years from the event, three from when you realised) keep ticking regardless, and evidence goes stale. Silence opens a door; it doesn’t hold it open forever.

Deadline tracker

We’ll watch your dates

Enter the dates from your own complaint and we’ll email you before each one runs out. Nothing else is ever sent.

A week before the company’s time to answer runs out
A month before your window to escalate closes
A week before that window closes

Who are you complaining about? Where would this go if they don’t sort it? When did you complain to them? The date on their final response (leave blank if there isn’t one yet) Where should we send the reminders? Send me the Thursday email as well — one a week, free, and you can stop it whenever you like.

We store your dates and your address and nothing else, and delete both once the dates have passed. The newsletter is separate and lasts until you unsubscribe. How we handle your data.

Common questions

They finally replied at week nine asking for more information. Do I have to answer before escalating?

No. Answer if it might resolve things, but your right to refer crystallised at week eight and their questions don’t suspend it. Doing both at once is allowed and often fastest.

Do I need proof they received my complaint?

Your sent email is the proof. For post, it’s the free proof of postage from the counter. For web forms with no reference and no screenshot, assume you can’t prove it and send the confirming email today.

What happens if they respond after I’ve gone to the ombudsman?

Nothing bad. Read it, and if the offer puts things right you can accept and tell the ombudsman it’s resolved. A referral is a route, not a trap.

Sources: FCA Handbook DISP 1.6 (the eight-week rule and what a week-eight letter must contain, including notice of your referral right; 15 business days for payment complaints); FCA Handbook DISP (the ombudsman can consider a complaint once eight weeks have elapsed); Ofcom’s approved ADR schemes and the Energy Ombudsman process, as linked from how complaining works.