Complaints and appeals
How to complain about the way work was carried out, how to appeal against an inspection, test or certification decision, who reviews each of them, and what happens next.
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What this procedure covers
This procedure applies to every complaint about the way work was carried out and every appeal against a decision we recorded, on any attendance — whether it was delivered from one of our own six service bases in İstanbul, İzmir, İskenderun, Varna, Constanța and London, by regional mobilisation of our technicians from one of those bases, or through a partner firm at a port where we hold no base. Where a partner attended, the complaint is still ours to answer; we do not redirect a complainant to the firm that did the work. ISO/IEC 17020 requires an inspection body to operate a documented complaints and appeals process and to make a description of it available to any interested party on request, and supplier-qualification questionnaires ask for the same thing. This page is written to that shape because it is the shape a buyer expects to be able to read. It is not a statement that we are accredited to ISO/IEC 17020, to ISO/IEC 17025 or to any other standard, and none is claimed anywhere on this site. There is no charge for raising a complaint or an appeal, or for having it considered, and it does not affect how a vessel is treated on a later attendance. This procedure is owned by the operations director accountable for compliance, who reviews it once a year and again after any complaint or appeal that results in a corrective action.
A complaint and an appeal are not the same thing
A complaint is about conduct: a technician who arrived late or not at all, an attendance that overran a port stay, damage caused on board, a report issued slowly or in the wrong form, an invoice that does not match the order, or the behaviour of someone acting for us. An appeal is a request to reconsider a technical decision — an item recorded as failed, a certificate withheld or endorsed with a limitation, a deficiency written into a report, a calibration result, a thorough examination or operational test whose finding you dispute. The two are routed differently because they need different evidence and a different reviewer, and the appeal is the one with teeth: it can change what the record says about the vessel. If you are not sure which you are raising, send it anyway; we decide from what you send, and the acknowledgement tells you which route it went into.
How to raise one
Write to compliance@shipcertify.com. If the vessel is alongside now, telephone first — the operations desk runs 24 hours a day, every day, on +90 532 657 48 78, which is also the WhatsApp number; İstanbul is +90 216 446 55 00 and London is +44 7438 092 555. A port stay does not wait for correspondence, and a telephone call puts the attending technician and the operations director for that base on the problem while the ship can still be reached; put it in writing afterwards so that it is recorded and answered under this procedure. Anyone may raise a complaint or an appeal — the owner, the technical manager, the charterer, the port agent, the master, a member of the crew, a port authority or a partner firm — and you do not have to be the party paying the invoice.
What to include
Give the vessel name and its IMO number, the port and the date of the attendance, the report, certificate or job reference, the item of equipment concerned, and precisely what is disputed and what outcome you are asking for. The IMO number matters because vessels are renamed, reflagged and re-managed, and our record of an attendance is indexed against the hull rather than the name on the stern. Attach the page of the report you are disputing, any photograph taken at the time, and a name and a means of reply. Without the IMO number and a report or certificate reference we can identify neither the attendance nor the people who carried it out, and the first reply you get will be a request for them.
Acknowledgement
A complaint or an appeal is acknowledged within one working day of receipt, and within four hours of receipt, at any hour and on any day, where the vessel is still alongside. The acknowledgement gives a reference number, names the person handling the matter, states whether it has been treated as a complaint or as an appeal, and lists anything further we need from you. An acknowledgement is a confirmation of receipt and nothing more; it is not an admission that the complaint is made out, and it is not the outcome.
How it is investigated
We pull the job record for that attendance — the order and its agreed scope, the report or certificate issued, the identity and calibration status of the test equipment used, the technician’s own account, photographs and the correspondence around the port call — and, where a partner firm attended, we require that firm’s account of the same events. Where a technical decision is disputed and the vessel’s schedule allows it, the equipment is re-examined; where the vessel has sailed, the finding is reconsidered on the record and on whatever you supply. We come back to you for anything that is missing rather than deciding around a gap. An investigation is concluded within 20 working days of the acknowledgement, and where the vessel is alongside and the point can be settled before she sails, it is settled during the port stay. Where a matter runs longer than 20 working days — a partner firm’s account is outstanding, or equipment has to be recalled and checked — we write to you every 10 working days with what is still open and when we expect to close it.
Who reviews it
A complaint is handled by someone who took no part in the attendance it concerns. An appeal is reviewed by a person technically able to judge the point at issue who took no part in the original decision and who does not report to the person who took it — which is why an appeal cannot be answered by the attending technician, or by the operations director who instructed the attendance. Where the disputed decision was taken by a partner firm, the review is carried out by us and not by that firm. In practice that reviewer is an operations director from a base other than the one that attended, taking the technical advice of a technician qualified in the discipline who had no part in the attendance; where that director took or supervised the decision under appeal, the review passes to the operations director accountable for compliance, and where that director took or supervised it, to a further operations director with no involvement in it. Where the point at issue is one on which no one in the company is both competent to judge it and free of involvement in it, the operations director accountable for compliance appoints an external reviewer, independent of us and of any partner firm concerned, at our cost; the appointment and what that reviewer concluded are recorded with the appeal.
The outcome
The decision is issued in writing, against the reference given at acknowledgement. It states what was found, which parts of the complaint or appeal are upheld and which are not, the evidence each conclusion rests on, and what we will do about it — re-attend, correct and reissue a report or certificate, amend the record held against the vessel, credit an invoice, or apologise. Where a point is not upheld, we say so plainly and give the reason rather than closing the matter without one. A complaint is not closed by telephone, and the decision names the next step still open to you. Where a complaint is upheld because work we invoiced was not carried out as it was ordered, we re-attend at our own cost and the vessel is not charged for the return visit. Where re-attendance is no longer possible or no longer wanted, the charge for the work concerned is credited against the invoice, or refunded within 30 days of the decision if the invoice has already been paid. Anything beyond the charge for the work concerned is a contractual claim rather than a remedy under this procedure, and is dealt with under the contract or purchase order agreed for the attendance.
Appealing a decision
An appeal must be lodged within 30 days of the date of the report or certificate that records the decision, or of the date we told you a certificate was being withheld, and it must identify the report or certificate reference and the specific finding disputed rather than the attendance as a whole. Until it is decided, the decision under appeal stands: a failed item stays failed, a recorded deficiency stays on the report, and a withheld certificate stays withheld, because a decision taken on safety grounds is not suspended by the fact that it is disputed. If the appeal succeeds, the report is amended or the certificate is issued, and where the original document has already been distributed we issue the corrected version to everyone who received it and mark the superseded one as superseded. If the appeal fails, the decision is confirmed in writing with the reasoning, and the escalation routes below remain open to you. An open appeal does not suspend or extend the validity of a certificate, or move a statutory due date: the next examination falls when it falls, whatever the appeal decides.
Records and trends
Every complaint and every appeal is recorded: the vessel and its IMO number, the port and date, the discipline concerned, the base or partner firm that attended, what was alleged, what was found, the action taken and the date the matter was closed. Records are retained for six years from the date the matter was closed, which covers a full five-year survey cycle and the year after it, and they are reviewed for trends every three months at a review of the operations directors, chaired by the operations director accountable for compliance and minuted. A pattern by discipline, port, technician or partner firm is treated as a finding in its own right and produces a corrective action — retraining, a change to a work instruction, a change of test equipment, or removal from the partner network. What a partner’s complaint record shows is part of the decision to instruct that partner again.
Work on other vessels affected by the same cause
A complaint or an appeal sometimes shows that the cause was not confined to one attendance. A reference standard found out of tolerance, a technician found not competent for a scope, or a procedure applied wrongly puts every attendance since the last known good point in question — on vessels whose operators have not complained and do not know. The affected work is identified from the job records: every attendance carried out with that reference standard, by that technician within that scope, or under that procedure, back to the last point at which the standard was known to be in tolerance, the technician’s competence was last verified, or the procedure was last confirmed to have been applied correctly. The operations director accountable for compliance then decides, on the technical advice of a technician qualified in the discipline who had no part in the original work, whether each report or certificate stands, is endorsed, is reissued or is withdrawn. We write to the operator of every affected vessel within five working days of that decision, whether or not they have complained, and tell them what was found, which document is affected, what we have decided about it and what has to be done again; where a withdrawn or corrected document has already been given to a class society, a flag Administration or a port State authority, we tell that body as well. The list of affected attendances, the decision on each document and every notification sent are recorded with the complaint or appeal that produced them.
If you are still dissatisfied
Our decision does not exhaust your options, and we will tell you which route applies to your case rather than leaving you to find it. Depending on what is disputed, those routes are the flag Administration of the vessel or the recognised organisation acting on its behalf; the classification society whose survey or requirement the item relates to; the port State control authority at the port of the attendance; the manufacturer of the equipment, where servicing is carried out under a manufacturer’s authorisation; and, where a scope of work is carried out under an accreditation, the accreditation body that granted it. Nothing on this page states that we hold accreditation, class society approval, flag authorisation or manufacturer authorisation for any scope of work — where such an instrument applies to work quoted to you, it is identified in the documentation provided on request with the quotation, which names the grantor and the public register the instrument can be checked on. We do not obstruct an approach to any of those bodies. Where a body is acting within its powers, or the client has agreed to the release, we provide our record of the attendance. Otherwise the confidentiality clause in our terms governs what may be released and to whom. This procedure is not a contractual dispute mechanism: a contractual claim is governed by the contract or purchase order agreed for that attendance, and the governing law and the forum in which a dispute is heard are the ones stated in it.
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