Records of Written Customer Complaints

A complaint often starts as a phone call, but only a written one creates a recordkeeping duty under this rule.

What Counts as a Customer Complaint?

• Customer complaint: any grievance by a customer, or by anyone authorized to act for the customer, about how the firm or an associated person handled soliciting or executing a transaction, or handled the customer's securities or funds.
• The written-complaint records rule only reaches complaints made in writing. An oral complaint, by itself, does not create a recordkeeping duty under this rule.

Exam Tip: Gotchas

• "Written" is doing real work here. A verbal complaint a representative hears on the phone does not, by itself, trigger this recordkeeping duty, even though the firm may still want to document it for other reasons.

Who Must Keep the Complaint File, and Where?

• Each member firm must keep and preserve a separate file of written customer complaints in each office of supervisory jurisdiction (OSJ), covering complaints relating to that office, including complaints about activities the office supervises, together with any action the firm took on them. A firm may instead keep a separate record of those complaints that clearly points to the correspondence file.
• The duty belongs to the firm. The OSJ is where the file lives, not who owes the duty.
• Instead of keeping the file at the OSJ itself, a firm may make the records promptly available there on FINRA's request.

Exam Tip: Gotchas

• Do not read the OSJ location requirement as making the OSJ responsible for the file. The written-complaint records rule places the duty on the member firm; the OSJ is only the required location, or the office where the firm makes the records promptly available.

How Long Must the Complaint File Be Kept?

• Retention period: at least four years.
• The rule states the period. It does not state a start date. Do not assume the clock starts at the complaint's receipt, its resolution, or any other event. The books-and-records unit's retention table carries this same four-year figure, with the same blank for a start date.

Exam Tip: Gotchas

• Do not import the three-year or six-year clock that other transaction records use elsewhere in this course. The written-complaint records rule sets its own four-year period, and it is the only row in the retention table with no stated trigger.

How Is This Different from Reviewing Correspondence That Reflects a Complaint?

• This section is a recordkeeping duty: keeping the written complaint itself, and any firm action on it, on file for four years.
• A separate supervisory duty, covered in the supervisory approvals unit's correspondence-review lesson, requires a registered principal to review correspondence that reflects a customer complaint. That duty is about reviewing correspondence as it comes in, not about maintaining the complaint file afterward.
• Treat these as two different duties tested separately: one asks what a firm keeps and for how long, the other asks who reviews correspondence and how.

What Should You Check on Exam Day?

• Confirm the complaint was written; an oral complaint alone does not trigger this recordkeeping duty.
• Remember the duty belongs to the firm, not the OSJ; the OSJ is where the file sits or is made available.
• Retention is at least four years, with no stated start date. Do not invent one.
• Separate this recordkeeping duty from the supervisory duty to review correspondence reflecting complaints.