Packaged Account Fees

[di30]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Thanks EXC
I think that too.
I do have the opportunity to have it looked at by the Ombudsman, but really do not know what to think. Nothing to lose I suppose, but as we know they do tend to go along with the Adjudicators decision.

So annoying to be told at first to be upheld now that twice....GRrrrrr lol.

[di30]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Dear Mr & Mrs

Your complaint about Loyds Bank PLC (Lloyds)

I have considered very carefully the additional information you have sent us. However, I regret to tell you that my view of your complaint remains unchanged.

As I explained in my previous opinion, I am not pursuaded that you thought you had to have a fee paying account in order to bank with Lloyds, as you held a free account with them prior to the account upgrades.

You have provided me with the details of the loans you taken out with Lloyds from 1989 to present. I note that this information shows that in 2001 (arund the time your account was upgraded to a gold service account) you took out two gold service loans.

I can see from the details of the loan agreements you have provided that you received a lower interest rate on the gold service loans than on the other loans you took out prior to the upgrade.

I note you have also provided details of a Special offer loan with you took out after the upgrade, and which had a lower interest rate than the gold service account loans. You have implied that you would not have agreed to upgrade on the basis that you could get a preferential rate on your loans, as you received a better interest rate on the special offer loan with was not related to your gold service account.

The term Special offer suggests that this loan rate was available for a limited time only. You took out this special offer loan in 2006 some years after you agreed to upgrade your account. There is no evidence to show that the special offer loan was available to you at the time you upgraded your account. I cannot reasonably conclude that the fact you received a better rate of interest on a loan you took out in 2006 would have influenced your decision to upgrade in 2001. As the gold service rate was the preferential rate available to you at that time - and from the information you have provided getting a good interest rate on your loans was something that was important to you - I consider it likely you agreed to upgrade for this reason.

You have also provided me with the evidence that you had stand alone extended warranty cover in 1998. The evidence Lloyds provided would suggest that extended warranty cover was a benefit of the gold service account in 2001, when your account was updraged. I note the evidence you have provided does not show that you had extended warranty cover at that time. In any event, I must reiterate that is some of the benefits associated with the account were not suitable for you this does not automatically mean that the account was mis sold.

In order to find that the account was mis sold I would need to be satisfied there were shortcomings in the sales procedure and also that had the shortcomings not taken place you would have acted differently. You have explained that at the time your account was upgraded you were made aware of both the account benefits and the monthly fee. I am therefore not persuaded that had Lloyds made it clear to you that the Gold Service account would be providing you with duplicate extended warranty cover, this would have made you reconsider the upgrade.

I would also note that the point of sale documentation you have provided would suggest that extended warranty cover was not a benefit of the gold service account at the time you upgraded.

In light of the above, it follows that I am still persuaded that it is more likely than not you chose to upgrade your account to a gold service account because you wanted to benefit from the preferential loan rate the account offered you. I say this because on balance I am not persuaded you thought you had to pay for your account in order to bank with Lloyds.

As far as the upgrades to the platinum and premier accounts are concerned, you were overdrawn during the time you held these accounts. As a result, you have saved money through having both the platinum and premier accounts as you saved more in overdraft interest through having preferential overdraft rate that you paid in monthly account fees.

Therefore, as I have explained previously, although there may have been some shortcomings in the way in which the accounts were sold to you. I am not persuaded that you would have done anything differently had all the requirements been met.

This means that I do not consider your complaint should be upheld. I know this is not the outcome you were hoping for. And I appreciate this will come as a disappointment to you.

If you disagree with this please write to tell me by 5 December 2013 - setting out your reasons and including any evidence that you have not already provided and that you think is important to your case. I would be grateful if you could let me know now. If you plan to reply fully but do not think you will be able to meet this deadline.

As we explain in our leaflet, your complaint and the Ombudsman, consumers have the right to ask an ombudsman to review their case - as the final stage of our process. But if we do not hear from you by 5 December 2013, we will assume that you have decided not to pursue further.

Yours sincerely

Adjudicator.
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .

Some errors "again" neither of us had an account in 1989 with Lloyds!

The loan was not even taken out straight away when they upgraded our account to Gold in 2001.......

(in the same year but not at the same time as the account was upgraded to us).

And we were not made aware of the benefits and costs etc, why isnt she listening!!

[dogtired]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Di, similar experience with a ms-sold PPI with Barclay's, apparently they have now produced a letter that says I cancelled this way back in 2001 and that the adjudicator considers her decision to reject my side is unchanged, how can this be fair and reasonable, FOS seem to be on the side f the banks in this don't they. Don't give up you have nothing to lose in tokening it further.

[di30]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Di, similar experience with a ms-sold PPI with Barclay's, apparently they have now produced a letter that says I cancelled this way back in 2001 and that the adjudicator considers her decision to reject my side is unchanged, how can this be fair and reasonable, FOS seem to be on the side f the banks in this don't they. Don't give up you have nothing to lose in tokening it further.

Sorry to hear your going through a similar thing as well Dogtired, it does seem they are backing the banks, despite the lack of evidence they have provided to the FOS.
They did at first uphold my case, that is what I find so frustrating grrrrr.

It's in one ear and out the other with our evidence! Have you taken your's further to the ombudsman?
Good luck with your's too.

[di30]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Well my hubby emailed to tell her there must be a mistake on the dates of loan in 1989 as there was no loan in that year, it was the year he opened a sole savings account, so there she got it wrong there I have since found the info to that too, so must get that right. I was diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) earlier this year so we did question her on this to have our case fast tracked,as its a terminal illness, no cure, not even dialysis or transplant is a cure, but dont think she understands that.......

Her email here this morning.......

Dear

Thank you for your email.

The loan I referred to from 1989 is listed on the Lloyds product information you provided. The loan is solely in your name and entitled “Fixed Rate P/Loan with Insce” start date 30/10/1989. Please see the document attached.

It may help to clarify that you are only able to qualify for a gold service loan if you hold a gold service account. Whilst I appreciate you have said that you did not upgrade for the gold service loans, you have said that you held fee paying accounts with Lloyds because you thought you had to. I could not agree with this argument, as the information both you and Lloyds has provided shows that you held a fee free account with Lloyds prior to 2001.

My role is to assess what is most likely to have happened in the circumstances based on all the evidence provided. As I am unable to agree with your comment that you thought you had to have the accounts, I need to review all the evidence and come to an opinion on what I consider most likely to have happened given the circumstances. I accept that I was not there when your accounts were upgraded and due to the passage of time there is limited information available.

However, whilst I accept you have explained why a number of the benefits associated with the account were not suitable for you, you have also told me that you were provided with details of the benefits and the account fee. You have provided me with a copy of the gold service welcome pack, which clearly lists the benefits and the monthly fee. Therefore, whilst there may have been some shortcomings in the way in which they were sold to you, I am not persuaded that you would have acted any differently had all the requirements been met. I say this because whilst some of the benefits were not suitable for you, as you were aware of the benefits you would have known this at the time and yet you still proceeded with the upgrade.

As you and Mrs Evans do not agree with my opinion, the next stage is to pass the complaint to an ombudsman for a final decision. If you want your complaint to be passed to an ombudsman for review, both you and Lloyds will have 21 days in which to provide any further information which you consider relevant to the complaint.

We can fast track complaints however the threshold for doing so is rather high. We would need evidence of a serious medical condition or severe financial hardship in order to fast track a case. Normally, as far as medical conditions are concerned, we would only fast track a complaint if the consumer was suffering from a terminal illness.

If you feel that your complaint should be fast tracked I would be grateful if you could provide me with evidence to support this. I will then pass this to my manager to review.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

[dogtired]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Sorry to hear your going through a similar thing as well Dogtired, it does seem they are backing the banks, despite the lack of evidence they have provided to the FOS.
They did at first uphold my case, that is what I find so frustrating grrrrr.

It's in one ear and out the other with our evidence! Have you taken your's further to the ombudsman?
Good luck with your's too.

yes indeed bumped my thread about this as well but no help as yet

[di30]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

yes indeed bumped my thread about this as well but no help as yet

Hi there

I shall have a read for as soon as I can lol but I dont think this one is as easy to deal with, no matter your reasons, they also take other stuff into account, so for example, I gave my reasons as I was not given the opportunity to stay with a free account but to upgrade, and the majority of the benefits would not be beneficial for me, or i had cover elsewhere already, but they did not go on the facts of this, they take into account loans and preferential rates as well.

At first the adjudicator upheld but the bank didnt agree and sent them details of OD rates, and it all went complex from there and rejected ever since....

[di30]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Dogtired I am so sorry for butting in on your thread!! my head been in a tiswaz the last few weeks, dealing with this horrible disease as well, am doing okay with that but with this on top now it doesnt help

[dogtired]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

You take care of yourself DI, its OK its just the feeling that FOS are siding with the banks, for whatever reasons, I really have nothing to lose now by withholding payment to Barclay's, heat light and house are more important that a defunct credit card xxx:hug:

[di30]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

You take care of yourself DI, its OK its just the feeling that FOS are siding with the banks, for whatever reasons, I really have nothing to lose now by withholding payment to Barclay's, heat light and house are more important that a defunct credit card xxx:hug:

Thank you DT :hug:
I totally agree with you, I do believe they side with the banks more, and I dont think they want this to be like the PPI where it runs into millions of complaints to be honest.
I had an email from the adjudicator earlier to say she will start the progress to the ombudsman now if i didnt want to wait until the date originally give 5th dec to try for fast track due to my condition, but i said i'm unable to make a decision right now because I need the chance to find further info as well

That is so true what you said about, heat, light and house are more important , cheers so much xxx

[EXC]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

So what are you going to do Di?

[di30]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

So what are you going to do Di?

Undecided at the moment EXC

I know I have nothing to lose by it going to the Ombudsman, maybe nothing to gain on this, so shall have to have a think on this one :tinysmile_twink_t2:

[dogtired]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

This was not my thread to begin with Di!
However as posted before it has not stopped Nat West trying to sell us the packed accounts despite our telling them we are not interested.
Prior to this we were with Halifax and we were in a packaged account but have not chased that at the moment'
I am sure about the Barclay's complaint, did e-mail back to the adjudicator and asked that it go for further review but as yet not had a reply.
Oh and al the support and help from all the lovely Beagles is also a welcome so glad I found you!

[di30]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

Another email received Friday about moving it forward to the ombudsman, but if i want it fast tracked then I shall have to let her know by tomorrow (Monday)

Dear

Thank you for your email and for clarifying the situation with your loans.

In order to fast track complaints we do sometimes require letters from specialists and GPs explaining the extent of the condition. However I will discuss your individual situation with senior colleagues on Monday to see whether or not this would be necessary in your case.

The ombudsman queue for the packaged accounts area is not too long at the moment so if your complaint did not qualify for fast track you would probably only be waiting around two – four months for your complaint to be allocated to an ombudsman.

Would you like me to start the process now? Or would you like more time to consider whether or not you accept my findings?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely

[di30]

Re: Packaged Account Fees

I was told today that they are accepting my fast track request, due to my chronic illness condition, just to let you know.:tinysmile_twink_t2: