Fundraising complaints procedure

We always aim for the highest fundraising standards and to provide you with the best service possible.

Unfortunately, sometimes things go wrong and when they do, we want to know. We welcome complaints about our fundraising and third parties acting on our behalf in the fundraising process. Telling us about your experience gives us the chance to put things right and make improvements.

Contact us

We want to sort things out for you as soon as we can. The easiest and quickest way is by talking to our dedicated complaints team on 0345 845 1945.

We can help you quicker on the phone but we recognise that this may not be your preferred choice, so you can also email us at supportercare@britishlegion.org.uk or write to us at: Fundraising Complaints, Royal British Legion, Haig House, 199 Borough High Street, London SE1 1AA

Email is not a secure communication medium so please avoid detailed personal information.

If you have a complaint about an item you have bought from the Poppy Shop please direct your complaint here: Poppy Shop, Adamsway, Mansfield NG18 4FN, or call us on 0300 123 9110. You can also email us at poppyshop@britishlegion.org.uk

Complaints about Poppy Shop items are not covered by this procedure, which is designed to address complaints about fundraising.

What we need from you

Please provide us with as much information as possible when making your complaint. This will help us to understand the issue and resolve it quickly. Please include:

Your name and address
Your supporter number, if you have one. You can usually find this near the top of the letter if we have written to you recently
A description of your complaint and how it’s affected you
When the issue happened
A contact number (or other preferred method of contact) and a convenient time to contact you.

Why do we need this information?

This is to make sure the right person handles your complaint so they can investigate and fix the situation as soon as possible. Your contact details will help us reach you if we need to discuss your complaint, especially if we need more information. We will always try to call you back at an agreed time. Please note that calls from us will appear as our general Supporter Care line 0345 845 1945.

What we'll do

We'll record your complaint and do everything we can to resolve it quickly:

We'll get in touch with you to discuss your complaint.
We will try to agree the resolution to the problem at that point.

For more complex issues, we may need more time to investigate your concerns. If this is the case:

We'll send you an acknowledgement letter outlining the next steps and when you can expect to hear from us.

We'll give you the name of the person handling your complaint and a contact number if you need to contact us.
If necessary, we will contact you for more information using your preferred method of contact.
If the investigation is likely to take longer than two weeks, we'll keep you updated of our progress throughout our investigation.

Our response

Once we've completed our investigation, we'll send you a Response Letter. This will outline the details of the investigation, how we reached our decision and what we propose to do to put things right. It will also provide information about what to do if you disagree with our response.

Appeal and escalation

We strive to do things the right way first time. However, if you don’t agree with our response, you may appeal and we will ask our Director of Fundraising to take a look and make sure your complaint has been resolved fairly.

Just contact our complaints team again on 0345 845 1945, by email to supportercare@britishlegion.org.uk or by post to: Head of Supporter Services, Royal British Legion, Haig House, 199 Borough High Street, London SE1 1AA

When we hear from you, we will send your request to the Director of Fundraising who will ensure there is a review of your complaint by senior staff.

Once your independent review has been completed, we’ll send you a Final Response Letter with our resolution.

If you disagree with the Final Response Letter you can escalate the complaint to the Fundraising Regulator. If your complaint is about a lottery or raffle you can escalate the complaint to the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS). We talk about these processes in Section 8 below.

Timescales

We aim to resolve all complaints as quickly as possible but sometimes resolution may take a while, especially if we need to undertake an investigation.

If we can resolve your complaint over the phone then that’s what we’ll do.

If your complaint requires a Response Letter, we will send that as soon as we can. If it’s likely to take a few days to investigate your complaint then we’ll send an acknowledgement as soon as possible, usually within two business days.

In our experience, most investigations can be completed within 14 days, after which we will send you a Response Letter. If we can’t meet this deadline we’ll send you an update indicating when we are likely to resolve your complaint. Where we need more time, we will continue to send regular updates until your complaint has been resolved.

Putting things right

We will usually ask you for your agreement before we implement any remedial action. If we agree that action is required to put things right we will take that action without delay or explain why we can’t do that.

If you've already complained

If you need an update on a complaint you’ve already made please contact your complaint handler. Their name and contact details are included in the acknowledgement letter.

8. The regulators

If you don’t agree with our resolution you can refer your complaint to the relevant regulator. Depending on the nature of your complaint there are two regulators who you can talk to.

For complaints about fundraising the regulator to contact is the Fundraising Regulator. For complaints about our Lottery or Raffle the regulator to contact is the Independent Betting Adjudication Service.

The Fundraising Regulator

We would like you to refer your complaint to our Director of Fundraising first (as described in Section 4 above) but you may approach the Fundraising Regulator sooner if you prefer. We are committed to abiding by the Fundraising Regulator’s final decision.

Part of the Regulator’s role is to investigate complaints from members of the public about fundraising practice where these cannot be resolved by us.

Following a referral to the Fundraising Regulator we will respond to their requests promptly and we will do what we can to ensure a fair outcome. At this point in the process we will usually engage directly with the Fundraising Regulator.

We’ll give you their details when we send our Response Letter but, for reference, you can get in touch with them in the following ways:

Online: Fundraising Regulator website

Telephone: 0300 999 3407

Post: The Fundraising Regulator, 2nd floor, CAN Mezzanine Building, 49-51 East Road, London N1 6AH

The Independent Betting Adjudication Service

Following a referral to the IBAS we will respond to their requests promptly and we will do what we can to ensure a fair outcome. At this point in the process we will usually engage directly with IBAS.