The calls for more documents came day and night to the seafood dock just up the road from one of BP’s main staging areas in its fight against the Gulf oil spill.

Some 400 pages of tax records and invoices later, the Vietnamese refugees who have been buying seafood from local fishing boats for 22 years got a letter saying their claim for compensation was denied.

“We didn’t meet the criteria,” Kim Vo said with disgust as she surveyed her dock and processing plant in Venice, Louisiana.

The April 20 explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon and unleashed 4.9 million barrels of oil wreaked havoc on coastal communities as a third of the Gulf of Mexico’s rich US waters were closed to fishing and fears of a black tide washed away tourists from Texas to Florida.

Nearly a year after BP vowed to make the people affected by the Gulf oil spill “whole” and created a $20 billion trust fund, its quasi-independent claims facility has paid $3.9 billion to 177,000 claimants.

Almost all of that was in the form of emergency payments made shortly after the spill or to people who accepted a “quick-pay” settlement of $5,000 for individuals or $25,000 for businesses.

Those with more complex claims are, for the most part, still waiting for help. About 79,000 interim and final claims have not yet been processed and another 43,000 have been sent back with a request for more documents.

People there complain the system set up to avoid lengthy court battles is unfair and unresponsive and tens of thousands – like Ms Vo – are turning to lawyers for help.

Much of their vitriol is aimed not at BP, but at Ken Feinberg – the lawyer appointed to oversee the claims facility.