PPI second letter to Pinnacle/country wide, Help please.

[bsirrell]

I have written to the providers of a PPI that i had with a morgage policy with Countrywide.

They have given me the following response.

I do not remember agreeing to the PPI when the policy was taken out, but i do remember contacting pinnical at some point and asking them what the payments from my bank account eachmonth was for, and also asking if the policy was required for my loan, and being given the answer that it was compulsory. Obviously i dont have evidence of this conversation.

Anyway i have written to them requesting a refund of the policy payments and have recieved the attatched reply.

Can anyone give me suggestions on where i can go from here, and are there any draft letters i can follow?

Many thanks
Brett

[Bill-K]

Re: PPI second letter to Pinnacle/country wide, Help please.

Hi Bsirrell, and welcome to you.

It can be difficult to reclaim PPI when it goes that far back, and there is little or no written evidence to show that the PPI was mis-sold. It's basically your word against theirs - but it's not impossible.

Whilst the mis-selling took place before there was any useful industry regulation regarding PPI mis-selling, I do not believe that they can ignore the FSA/FOS rules on how they deal with complaints now. These are contained within the FSA Policy Statement PS 10/12, and it may help if you quote a few of them.

It also annoys me when they make their ONLY response their final one, and I have used something like this on such occasions. Maybe you can use parts of it that match your own circumstances:

Thank you for your letter of XXXXXX, but without even attempting to enter into any meaningful dialogue, you have decided that you have now provided your final response.

What you have sent me clearly cannot even be considered an initial response to my complaint – let alone a final one. You haven’t asked me what reasons I have for considering the PPI as mis-sold, yet you say you found no evidence of mis-selling. You clearly have not looked for any such evidence, and simply appear to assume that I was not mis-sold the PPI policy.

I have thus been forced to take further advice on this, which I had hoped would not prove necessary. Please be aware that I shall be seeking compensation additional to the redress you will be required to make, due to your treatment of my complaint. I would suggest that you now try and limit your liability in this respect by responding properly.

Your response falls far short of what is expected by the FSA, and I am sure you will agree that your conduct thus far will not be looked upon favourably by the FSA, the FOS, or the Courts, if you force me to take my complaint to them.

May I respectfully ask that you now refer to Disp App 3.2.1, 2 & 3 of the FSA Dispute Resolution Handbook, and to the entire section Disp App 3.3, then seriously consider dealing with this complaint properly. If you are then neither able nor willing to deal with this complaint properly - in compliance with the FSA – I must insist that you pass it to someone who is.

I genuinely hope that your response thus far has been made in error, and I am prepared to accept that, if you can now demonstrate that this is not your normal method of dealing with PPI complaints.

I thus look forward to your co-operation by sending me a proper response, in compliance with the FSA policies.

You may want to actually quote some of the DISP APP 3 guidelines. The FSA Handbook on PPI Redress contained within PS 10/12 states:

DISP APP 3.2.1 The firm should consider, in the light of all the information provided by the complainant and otherwise already held by or available to the firm, whether there was a breach or failing by the firm.

DISP APP 3.2.2 The firm should seek to establish the true substance of the complaint, rather than taking a narrow interpretation of the issues raised, and should not focus solely on the specific expression of the complaint. This is likely to require an approach to complaint handling that seeks to clarify the nature of the complaint.

DISP APP 3.2.3 A firm may need to contact a complainant directly to understand fully the issues raised, even where the firm received the complaint from a third party acting on the complainant’s behalf. The firm should not use this contact to delay the assessment of the complaint.

DISP APP 3.3.1 Where a complaint is made, the firm should assess the complaint fairly, giving appropriate weight and balanced consideration to all available evidence, including what the complainant says and other information about the sale that the firm identifies. The firm is not expected automatically to assume that there has been a breach or failing.

DISP APP 3.3.2 The firm should not rely solely on the detail within the wording of a policy's terms and conditions to reject what a complainant recalls was said during the sale.

DISP APP 3.3.3 The firm should recognise that oral evidence may be sufficient evidence and not dismiss evidence from the complainant solely because it is not supported by documentary proof. The firm should take account of a complainant's limited ability fully to articulate his complaint or to explain his actions or decisions made at the time of the sale.

DISP APP 3.3.4 Where the complainant's account of events conflicts with the firm's own records or leaves doubt, the firm should assess the reliability of the complainant's account fairly and in good faith. The firm should make all reasonable efforts (including by contact with the complainant where necessary) to clarify ambiguous issues or conflicts of evidence before making any finding against the complainant.

DISP APP 3.3.5 The firm should not reject a complainant's account of events solely on the basis that the complainant signed documentation relevant to the purchase of the policy.

DISP APP 3.3.9 In determining a particular complaint, the firm should (unless there are reasons not to because of the quality and plausibility of the respective evidence) give more weight to any specific evidence of what happened during the sale (including any relevant documentation and oral testimony) than to general evidence of selling practices at the time (such as training, instructions or sales scripts or relevant audit or compliance reports on those practices).

[bsirrell]

Re: PPI second letter to Pinnacle/country wide, Help please.

I like this! Thanks
Brett

[di30]

Re: PPI second letter to Pinnacle/country wide, Help please.

Good one Bill.

And the best of luck Brett.