repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court option?

[steinway]

Basically Im after advice please about whether I'd be silly to go out court or not over ppi that the ombudsmans service have rejected. (despite all our other ppi claims for same person having been upheld)
Do I need to have worked out the exact amount that is owed?? I hvaen' sard them yet but it goes back to 2002 so imagine they've chucked most of it out now.
And could i end up if lose the case having to pay their court costs and expenses as we coulnd't afford this probably and I should just drop it in this case.
I suppose I'm after some serious advice about court as I have no legal knowledge and am happy to pay £120 to try and claim his PPI back BUT I don't want to end up bankrupt because of it and am worried if lose they COULD even in a tiny chance make us pay back thousands in costs.
Thanks in advance for anyone reading this anf for ANY support or advice. You feel very alone in all this and I do feel a bit 'greedy/mean' chasing this BUT I also am pretty sure we have a case and if we do then I feel VERY WRONGED by how we've been treated mostly be the bank but also the FOS and made to feel so 'grabbing and thick' about itall.


Brief ish history of a too long saga about ppi

Husband always been self employed. Had PPI on everything and is pretty sure he was sold most of it by an advisor in the bank. although this particular mortgage ppi we aren't sure if it was halifax or if he went to a financial advisor who advised on the remortgage/ PPI.
We tried to reclaim in 2007/8 but were niaive about it, halifax sent us a letter saying he was eligible as was paying NI etc and we left it thiking we were wrong and that all this stuff about if you were self employed you were missold was wrong.

Then new media coverage started happening and we realised we may have been missold.

Successfully and simply claimed from morgan stanley/ barclays/ Capital one with no problems or delays.

Halifax wouldnt listen as we'd already claimed and not gone to FOS. FOS wouldn't deal with us either as we'd gone past 6 mnth deadline. We argued this and in 2012 they reopened the case (subsequently we realised they only reopened the credit cards and mortgage and NOT the loan for some unfathmoable reason!

But credit cards we ended up with letters saying you had been missold and you were not missold dated similarly from diff. depts of halifax.

We hada letter at one point with a cheque saying this is the interest owed on the cc ppi as they'd given us a wrong cheque before (and we'd never had a cheque!!! and had only had letters saying we hadn't been missold at that point!) Upshot of this was they gave us a cheque for about £700 and we think that clears up the ppi on the cards (although have no idea how they came to the figure!) Also shows their total ineptness.

The mortgage ppi has been going back and forth for a long time. THe fos have finally sent to an actual ombudsman who said it hadn't been missold. We rejected this. It states some innacuracies in it about my husband and states also that thebank says that he bought this ppi off his own back postally???? and that the bank never advised on it.

I've since found a document that has a computer ticked box saying 'we will advise and make a recommendation for you after we have assessed your needs for repayents insurance. blah blah.

Althoguht husband cannot remember the details of everything back from 2002-5 he is pretty sure he saw one advisor from the branch for all his financial stuff. I cannot see him ever off his own back going and gettinga policy as he's not the best at financial stuff and also when I read the policy cover I cannot see how ever it would have been valid for him as it seems he would have had to wind down his business if not employed after 30 days!!! I just don't understand fundamentally how they are arguing that it has not been missold but obviously after being rejected by the FOS I'm starting to worry that the bank IS right.

What I don't understand is that they have upheld the credit cards ie said that they have been missold. Every other ppi policy he has had with other banks they've upheld it straight away but why should the mortgage be any different??(other than obviously it's a larger amount of money we are chasing!) Also they have never talked once about the loan - we haven't chased that up at all after thinking the FOS were but then realising they hadn't even looked into after spending years waiting for responses from them.


Basically thf FOS never seemed to fully understand the inst and outs of the case and did mess us around - i started a complaint about them in the end and at that point things started moving BUT Even the ombudsmans decision some of the things he's written or assumed about my husband I just don't know how he can get to these views given my letters and our recollections etc that they have in front of them. I think we have been tarred with a 'gravy train' brush and yet in my husbands case he would always have just done what he thought was right as he has no idea about finance etc but tries to be responsible and TRUSTED them to make decisions for him on financial matters. THey've put this down as 'we can see that it was not explained clearly and accessibly and yet cannot be certain that mr b would not have done or made the same choice if it had all been explained clearly etc!!!)

Anyway - we're pretty convinced we have a case and I'm certainly happy to lose £120 on MCOL over it BUT I'm petrified of it becoming a big battle and us ending up having to pay the banks thousands in court costs etc THis I couldn't do!!!!

Many thanks ps have docs could upload etc if need be to help. Also, if it turns out a 'dodgy' financial advisor sold him the halifax PPI then do we chasethem??So confusing as halifax have said he applied for it postally and the only way I can think of him doing this is via a financial advisor having advised him abiut it and then sending it off to the halifax and yet I also have some documentation where there is clearly a halfiax headed paper saying they've reommended this product etc etc. whichI've just found as it was in a pile of old things from when we started taking the halifax to court over bank charges!!!( which they immediately paid rather than giving us the £
50 gesture of goodwill!

[Victoria27]

Re: repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court optio

Hello, Steinway.
Thank you for your post.

First of all, if you go to the small claim court, it will not cost you much. In fact, very little.
L'pool is currently going through that process, she can advise you on the details.

Did I understand you correctly, that the basis of your complaint is the fact that your husband is self employed?
In some cases self employment is covered by PPI, though usually it involves some limitations, "onerous", unusual terms.

It depends upon what is exactly said in the policy document.


To help you to clarify it, I refer to the FOS approach to that topic.

From the FOS regulations:

"were the policy's employment terms "onerous or unusual"?


When we deal with complaints relating to a policy's employment terms, we generally view an "onerous or unusual" employment term as one that:


is not in line with what consumers would reasonably expect; or
completely excludes a consumer from cover because of their employment status;or
suggests that a consumer's employment circumstances must change with some degree of permanency or finality for them to successfully claim unemployment benefit; or
requires a self-employed consumer looking to claim for unemployment to do something over and above what an employed person who had just been made redundant would have to do to make a successful claim.

Employment terms vary between policies so it is important to carefully check the exact wording of the terms.


case studies 17
A policy stated that the consumer's business "must have permanently ceased to trade" before a claim could be made for unemployment. We decided it was an onerous and unusual term because it required finality in the consumer's changed employment situation.
A policy said the consumer had to show they had "stopped work because [they] could not find enough work to meet all [their] reasonable business and living expenses" before a claim could be made for unemployment. This did not require finality in the consumer's changed employment situation, so we decided it was not an onerous or unusual term.
A policy said the consumer's business "must cease to trade as a direct result of it being unable to pay its debts when they fell due" before a claim could be made for unemployment. We decided it was an onerous and unusual term because it required a self-employed consumer to be insolvent before they could successfully claim for unemployment (unlike an employed consumer who had just been made redundant).
A policy said the consumer had to "have involuntarily ceased trading, declared this to HMRC, be registered as unemployed, and be available and actively looking for employment". We decided it was not an onerous or unusual term, because it was comparable to what an employed consumer would have to do."


My understanding is that mortgage protection covers could be different from anything else. They are specific, but, again, everything depends on what is said in the policy.

If your case was rejected by the Ombudsman, not just adjudicator, that means next step is small claim court.

The main question is whether your husband could make a successful claim or his employment status makes it impossible.
What does Ombudsman say about that?
Does that policy cover self employment status?
What sort of work your does your husband do?

If you know that the policy is not suitable, then you should pursue it and go to court. In that case it will be the right thing to do.

However you have to be aware that you need to prepare and present a very strong case and to prove without shadow of doubt that your husband cannot claim unemployment benefit.

That is why it is very important to check the terms of the policy, what exactly is said about self employment and see how it affects your husband, depending on what is his occupation.

Once we have more details, it will be easier to decide on the course of action.

Let's see what is said in the policy.

One of the best experts about PPI is Di.

We will help in any way we can.

Thank you.

V

[L'pool64]

Re: repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court optio

Good Morning Steinway,

hope that you are well this morning. I have to go out shortly but will get back to you later on the back of Victoria's post. One thing I will say is that there is no better advice nor information to be had, anywhere, than that from Di and Victoria.

Have a great day.

:beagle:

[Victoria27]

Re: repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court optio

Thank you very much, L'pool
So you found STEINWAY
I thought it would be good if you get in touch.
Dear Steinway, best of luck.
I am away for a few weeks and shall catch up on my return in mid May.
Meanwhile, if you don't mind that, please ask for your SAR. You will need it in case you go to court.
It might take up to 40 days to get it.
It costs only £10.
So we have enough time to think about your case.
I shall follow up on my return.
As frustrating as it is, the only way to get a good result eventually, if possible, is to get "immuned" to disappointments every time they knock you down and try to discourage you to keep going.
It is a long and draining process. So, please stay strong.
have a good day.
V

[steinway]

Re: repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court optio

thanks so much both for your useful advice! certainly very interesting if you going to court l'pool64. I'm going totry tomorrow to dig out the ppi info. that we have here and try and scan the unemployment section in so you can have a look, but yes, the SAR thing I think now has to be done so will try and get on to this too as know there is something on here about that. Only thing is it dates back to 2002 - 10 so not sure how much they will have kept now!! We'll see! But thanks again - have a bit of renewed vigour about this now as it so easy to get disheartened with it all when you constantly getting disbelieved etc so thankyou both.

[L'pool64]

Re: repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court optio

Hi Steinway,

just a few things to think about before you consider court.

re the Ombudsman, have you gone as far as you can? There is an appeals process with FOS. Have you asked for your case to be assessed vis appeal?

Have you thought about contacting your MP? They are there to help us. They have surgeries, the times of which are on their web site.
you could ask him/her to contact the Ombudsman on your behalf. FOS have a special section that deal with MP's, so your case would receive the right attention.

this is the first thing that I would try.

Now for the court route. Victoria is right. I have started the process with Santander. I had a Laura Ashley store card with GE Capital and despite repeated attempts with Santander and the underwriters, Genworth, the answer has been "no". Santander advised me that I had only paid £28.79, with the implication what was I writing to them for such a small amount for? So in my case, I have very little to lose. I have written to the CEO with a "pre court letter". That gives them 28 days before I file the actual court papers. I have put in an amount of £750.00. I just took the amount of £28.79 x by 24 months which I reckoned was fair and rounded it up. Plus £750 is below the FOS fee of £850.00. I file my court papers at the end of this week.

So you will see, I have nothing to lose, except the initial fee and I think it is worth it.

You will need to know how much you are owed, so that is the amount that will appear on the court papers. Victoria has already suggested a SAR. This should provide some idea of the monies you have paid. There are spreadsheets available on this site, which you can put the information into and that will give you the interest etc. I'm afraid that spreadsheets etc are not my forte so any advice re these would hinder rather than help you!!!!!!

As you will know, the limit of a claim, at the small claims court, is £10,000 and the fee is dependent on the amount. I will send you a copy of my letter which you can amend etc. I will do a separate post with that. I appreciate that you have concerns about the court process, however if you go the court route then you have to go at it with full confidence. There is always a chance that the company may prefer not to go to court and may settle beforehand, because of publicity etc, however this is only a maybe and you should assume that you will appear before the judge.

please come back to me if you have any questions. I may have forgotten something.

the only advice that I can give you is weigh up all the options without any emotion ( I know that is difficult with these companies but as the saying goes..."how do you eat an elephant ? One bite at a time.)

I wish you all the best no matter what your decision.

:beagle:

[L'pool64]

Re: repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court optio

Hi Steinway,

this is is the letter that I used.......

As it has not been possible to resolve this matter amicably, and it is apparent that court action may be necessary, I write in compliance with the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct.

Payment Protection Insurance provided by GE Capital (now owned by Santander), was sold in a non compliant manner, i e the customer (me) was not given enough information, at the time of purchase, to enable an informed decision to be made.

1, Charges were not explained fully.
2, Cancellation rights post the 30 cooling off period were not explained at all.

From you I am claiming the sum of £750.00.
I have calculated that this amount would be a proper redress in respect of ppi monies paid and interest due, over the life of the above mentioned store card.

Listed below are the documents on which I intend to rely in my claim against you:
1, Letters received from Santander.
2, All reports concerning the regulators fine against GE Capital.

In accordance with the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct I would request that you provide me with copies of the following documents:
1, Any documents that Santander hold pertaining to my store card and ppi.

I can confirm that I would be agreeable to mediation and would consider any other system of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in order to avoid the need for this matter to be resolved by the courts.
I would invite you to put forward any proposals in this regard.

In closing, I would draw your attention to section II (4) of the Practice Direction which gives the courts the power to impose sanctions on the parties if they fail to comply with the direction including failing to respond to this letter before claim.

I look forward to hearing from you within the next 28 days.

Should I not receive a response to my letter within this time frame, then I anticipate that court action will be commenced with no further reference to you.

........hope this helps,

All the best

:beagle:

[di30]

Re: repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court optio

Hi there

so sorry I have not been about, its been hectic and today is my hubby's birthday, but I can see already of the excellent advice/info provided by these lovely friends of mine x :tinysmile_twink_t2:

Now do what you need to do by following the advice as given above, but I will also ask (sorry if you have already mentioned and done this (where I may have missed it), but did you also try the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the business?
If not do mention your concerns as well as the above advice about the complaints team have underestimated your loan ppi complaint, which seems rather strange due to the fact of the same reasons that applied for the other where they succeeded with the reasons that you disclosed to them.

They lacked their care on the customer service, which is not good for the business, they need to be clear of this.
And of course bringng your local MP into it as well may be of some help, they should be more than happy to help support you, and some will even write on your behalf (once they know the full details of the story).

If you require a SAR template letter, please let me know.

The best of luck and look forward to hearing from you x

[Victoria27]

Re: repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court optio

Thank you very much, Di.
very good points.
Steinway, our top experts are here with you all the way
Di's template letter is very good.
I used it twice, requesting SAR.
I can see L'pool posted her excellent letter, which can be very helpful.
I'll catch up with you in a couple of weeks.
Best of luck
V

[steinway]

Re: repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court optio

HI again, Thanks l-pool have read your letter and that is a great start for if/when court becomes the only way forward - brilliant letter.

As for FOS believe I have exhausted it all there. (I did start a complaints procedure about them as they had so muddled up my case but then one person started dealing with it all and finally YEARS later things started happening BUT basically all the problems were to do with them not looking at things because 'I had not got back to them within the 6 month deadline from having had a rejection from the halifax! In fact our problems started there as basically we believed the Halifax and continued to pay for mortgage cover etc for another year until the MSE website started taking the PPI thing on and we realised we had been missold.
Indeed i've always been confused about this as it's always seemed a dead cert. if you're self employed - you've been missold and yet from our experience it has been anything but!

Interestingly a couple of years ago the lady I helped get her £5.5k ppi insurance back from by just helping her write a couple of template letters banked with the Halifax and had the same mortgage as my husband had (It's my husband's PPI here I'm talking about by way - not mine) She was part time employed and they didn't question anything just paid up so again I just don't understand the seeming randomness of what they accept and don't.

I do have some documentation from the early days.

So if anyone could possibly advise me on how to attach docs to this thread as i'm not great at technology! then i can attach a copy of the policy wording that the FOS sent me that halifax had obviously sent them as evidence - it's the page detailing unemployment and is unclear to me when i look at it about what is covered indeed when I look at it I assume that he's got to have wound down his business in order to claim unemployment but the FOS say something different on looking at it about 30 days - this in itself completely confuses me but I'll attach it and perhaps you'll be able to see what avenue I should look at to best bring up at court.
I'll also try to attach the ombudsman's final letter to us (no names my husband is just 'mr b').
And Di - if you have a SAR template and could point me in right direction of where to send it to (Halifax/ BOS??) to get read that would be great. Again Im really worried about this as things date back to 2002 and I'm sure although we started a case with them in 2007 now it's got to 2014 am sure they've deleted loads of stuff!
Yet they clearly could find evidence etc of My husbands dealings with them when dealing with the FOS this year and last so hopefully haven't deleted stuff quite yet. Should i ask them for evidence of when they destroyed particular things IF they do say they haven't got information PARTICULALRY on the loan (as we have no paper evidence here of that) and the mortgage details as they did manage to get things together farily recently for the FOS so if they've since destroyed this would that be quite telling in court??
And yes, Di - do you mean the CEO of the HALIFAX? or the FOS? DO you mean send the letter before court to the CEO and MP as well??

Anyway - thank you again everybody. COurt was always my last option as I am completely petrified about it YET in my husbands case I do feel he totally got 'done over' by the banks as he's the 'decorator who in his own words hates finances and anything to do with money and totally TRUSTED The banks and just did what they always suggested. Definitely at one time an advisor said oh and this is the PPI and actually you do have to have it with this product BUT he can't remember whether this was to do with credit cards, loan or mortage. He always would have tried to do the 'right thing' though and this is why I've got my teeth into this one. My parents always told me to steer clear of banks and that a lot of insurances were useless so funnily enough I never took out any ppi and alwyas looked out for things like that and saw them as a way for the banksto make money but my husband trusted them (they literally sold him a credit card too when he asked for an extension of his paltry overdraft of £150 and declined to give him more overdraft despite him normally having money in his account and just going under if a cheque wasn't paid in in time for a job!) Me as an ex student - I had £4k overdraft without any quibble!!!!!!

So I can see that this is going to take a lot more energy BUT I'm going to really try and go for this.
Thanks again for your support. It REALLY feels a lot easier feeling there are people at your side!!! when staring up into the face of a big corporate bank's potential lawyers!!! Will keep posting as do things!

[steinway]

Re: repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court optio

oh and forgot to add - what happens to about if the actual mortage ppi was sold to us by a third party as we assumed that mr b (hubby) got his mortgage and PPI together in 2002 - had a statement from aorund then detailing an 'insurance payemnt of a similar amount to later on going out every month. When this was with FOS the halifax said that the 'insurance' was actually building's insurance and NOT mortage PPI. We accepted this as really didn't know but always thought it was strange that he would have gone off his own back and suddenly got mortgage ppi but he did remortage via a financial advisor (we got his details still) in 2005 anddefinitely was paying morage ppi then. This then could explain why the halifax said that they thought he'd bought it via the post?? and that it was NON advised sale (and said they had documentation that was signed by gary to this extent) and yet I have also found a piece of paper (all with halifax logo on it that has boxes ticked (by computer) saying that they had 'recommended' the PPI cover and definitely not with a computer ticked box saying that they hadn't recommended it which was the other option. I'll try and attach that one too (taking out the name of mr b if it's on there.) but what happens in this case?? should I chase this up and call the financial advisor?? do you think he's likely to be honest about stuff and what happens if this guy has sold him this product as clearly that was a missale but he's just a one man band and yet we've got this paperwork with halifax logo's all over it too.??? Curiouser and curiouser!!! Any ideas?

[L'pool64]

Re: repost from welcome group ref PPI advice.Long battle, FOS turned down,court optio

Mornin' Steinway,

things don't look so black when you have Di and Victoria on your side!!!!!

here are my suggestions.

leave the court route to the last. So when everything else has been exhausted, then send out the 28 day letter and, proceed with the court papers. I believe this should be your last resort.

i think you need to talk to your MP to see what he is prepared to do. Personally, I think a simultaneous letter to FOS and the CEO would be a double whammy. However, your MP may prefer a phone conversation.

Going to to the CEO shows that you are not for messing. Victoria copied her MP in on every piece of correspondence.

With regard to the SAR and available records...... Money Laundering legislation requires that a company keeps customer documentation for a period of six years after the contract has finished.

With regard to the financial adviser, it would depend on whether or not they were independent or a tied agent of the Halifax. I don't know enough about this area.

Please come back to me if you have any questions.

Keep everything as simple as you can. Make a list of important points, to make things easy for your MP to read/understand and act on.

very best regards,

:beagle: