Complaints

We publish what people actually said. If we have got something wrong, we would rather hear it from you than not hear it at all.

Wrong attribution is the worst failure this product can commit, and we treat a complaint about one as the most serious thing in our inbox that day.

How to complain

By email, preferably: complaints@otamediagroup.com

By post: Complaints, OTA Media Limited, Unit 82a James Carter Road, Mildenhall, Bury St Edmunds, IP28 7DE, England

If neither of those is accessible to you, tell us in any reasonable way and we will work with it. A complaint should never fail because of the format it arrived in.

What to include

You do not need to use legal language or cite a clause. Tell us in your own words what is wrong. It helps us move faster if you can give us:

• a link to the page, or the quotation as it appears;
• what you say is inaccurate, unfair, or should not be there;
• what you believe the correct position is, if you know it;
• whether you are the person quoted, or acting for them;
• how you would like us to reply to you.

If you are missing some of that, send the complaint anyway. We will ask.

What happens, and when

Within 3 working days we acknowledge your complaint and tell you who is handling it.

Within 21 days we give you a decision in writing: what we found, what we are doing about it, and why. If we need longer, we will tell you before the 21 days are up rather than after, and we will say when to expect an answer.

While we investigate a complaint about an attribution, we will normally suppress the disputed material rather than leave it published. Suppression is not deletion: the record stays intact and reversible, and if we conclude the attribution was right we restore it and tell you so.

What we can do to put things right

Depending on what we find, we may correct the record, publish a correction or clarification with due prominence, remove material we cannot stand behind, apologise, or change the process that allowed the error. Often more than one of those.

Where we conclude we were right, we will say so plainly and explain our reasoning. We would rather disagree with you openly than quietly do nothing.

If the complaint is about the person handling complaints

OTA Media Limited is a small company, and at present the Editor is also the Complaints Handler. That is a real conflict and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

Where a complaint concerns the Editor, he takes no part in deciding it. The internal stage is waived entirely: we tell you at once, in writing, that you may take the matter straight to an external regulator without waiting the 21 days. Nobody here assesses their own conduct.

Every recusal is logged and reported at our quarterly compliance review. As the company appoints further directors or staff, the two roles will be separated permanently.

If you are still not satisfied

In the meantime, if you are unhappy with how we have handled your complaint, write to us again and say so. It will be looked at afresh, and where the conflict rule above applies it will not be looked at by the person you are complaining about.

This procedure does not affect your legal rights, and it is not a condition of exercising them. If your concern is about personal data rather than editorial standards, our privacy policy sets out your rights under UK GDPR, including your right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

How we check ourselves

We review our editorial standards and complaints handling at least quarterly, and minute it. Each review covers complaints received, corrections issued, recusals, and a sample audit of published attributions against the source records they came from.

Where a review finds a failure, we correct it with due prominence, record the cause, and change the process that allowed it. The record of what we got wrong stays published. Corrections are appended to our corrections log, never written over the top of the mistake.

Who is responsible

Edwin Danso, Chief Executive and Editor, is responsible for editorial standards, for complaints handling, and for addressing any compliance failure. He is accountable to the board of OTA Media Limited, which currently has one director.

OTA Media Limited, registered in England and Wales no. 16472914. Registered office: Unit 82a James Carter Road, Mildenhall, Bury St Edmunds, IP28 7DE, England.