A complaint procedure can exhaust the complainant before it examines the complaint.

Complaint systems can be built so that the process itself does the filtering. Forms, waiting periods, resubmissions, reference numbers, each step legitimate on its own, and together they select for stamina rather than merit. The complaints that survive are not the strongest ones, they are the ones brought by people who had energy to spare. Nobody has to refuse anything for this to work.

If you are pursuing something like this, decide early what you are willing to spend and keep a plain written record from the first contact. If you run such a process, count how many cases stop midway rather than how many are resolved. The dropout rate usually tells you more than the outcomes do.