UK consumer finance complaints soar 179% Consumer complaints about financial products soared 179 per cent in the first quarter of the financial year, driven largely by mis-sold payment protection insurance disputes. There were 159,197 new complaints referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service in the three months to June, up from 57,076 over the same period last year. IN Personal Insurance The overwhelming majority of these disputes were about the mis-selling of loan insurance. Over 80 per cent - 132,152 - of new complaints were about PPI, up from 56 per cent (32,445) in the same period last year. The FOS, which settles disputes between consumers and financial companies, said it is still receiving about 2,000 new PPI complaints each day. The ombudsman upheld 78 per cent of PPI complaints, compared with a rate of 65 per cent in the 2012-13 financial year. The next most complained about products were current accounts, which received 2.5 per cent of all disputes, followed by mortgages at 2 per cent. However, the ombudsman upheld complaints about these products at 31 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively. Packaged bank accounts, which bundle together a variety of extras such as travel or identity theft insurance in return for a monthly charge, saw an 84 per cent rise in complaints from last year. There were 736 complaints in the three months to June, of which 66 per cent were upheld. It is the first quarter the ombudsman has separated complaints about these products from overall disputes about current accounts. It comes after new rules forcing banks to check customers eligibility before selling paid-for accounts came into effect in March, following a review that uncovered poor sales practices.