ALLIANCE & LEICESTER Record fine for PPI mis-selling

chattycathyuk

Sorry if this has already posted.

Alliance & Leicester has been fined a record £7m by the City watchdog for three years of mis-selling sales of payment protection insurance (PPI).


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7657446.stm

http://www.alliance-leicester-group.co.uk/html/media/non-indexed/release.aspx?txtcode=PR0710081


opps!

sue149

good hope barclays first plus is next

marshallka

sue149 wrote: »

good hope barclays first plus is next

Me too sue:beer:

marshallka

Does 7million sound a lot to you. I am on about the fine imposed on the Alliance and Leicester yesterday???

Take a look at this

The Office of Fair Trading said that the average claims ratio in the personal loans PPI market was 18%. If this is representative of A&L's business then Burgess said the bank would have received £265m in premiums, paid out £48m in claims, paid out £7m to the FSA and be left with £210m to pay for its overheads on the business and carry out the remedial work that the regulator has demanded.


So if you reckon that fine was only for sales of PPI over a 3 year period from January, 2005 to December, 2007 and they still made £210 million after all that imagine how much more they have made from when they first started ripping people off and what about 2008??? Also take into account this was only for telephone sales of the PPI. Are they using this £210 million profit to pay everyone back with interest???

Its not enough, it just sounds enough to us the little people. In fact its peanuts to them and to me only respresents a slap on the wrist.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/ppi/co...web1439714.htm


The FSA said the company qualified for a 30% reduction in the penalty by settling at an early stage of the FSA's investigation. Were it not for this discount, the FSA said the penalty would have been £10m. (its good when they have the money to settle straight away and have a reduction in the fine:mad: )

Also is this meaning automatic pay backs for customers in that period above

David Bennett, A&L's chief executive, said: "I apologise sincerely for our shortcomings. We will be writing to every customer concerned and will be working with independent accountants and the FSA to ensure we put right any disadvantage

angelwillow

I had a loan with them in 2004 which I paid off early in 2005 so looks like I may have missed out and may still have a long winded claim...........
Bet they claim it only applies to loans from 2005 to 2007 and no other years.

diddydiner

marshallka wrote: »

Does 7million sound a lot to you. I am on about the fine imposed on the Alliance and Leicester yesterday???

Take a look at this

The Office of Fair Trading said that the average claims ratio in the personal loans PPI market was 18%. If this is representative of A&L's business then Burgess said the bank would have received £265m in premiums, paid out £48m in claims, paid out £7m to the FSA and be left with £210m to pay for its overheads on the business and carry out the remedial work that the regulator has demanded.


So if you reckon that fine was only for sales of PPI over a 3 year period from January, 2005 to December, 2007 and they still made £210 million after all that imagine how much more they have made from when they first started ripping people off and what about 2008??? Also take into account this was only for telephone sales of the PPI. Are they using this £210 million profit to pay everyone back with interest???

Its not enough, it just sounds enough to us the little people. In fact its peanuts to them and to me only respresents a slap on the wrist.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/ppi/co...web1439714.htm


The FSA said the company qualified for a 30% reduction in the penalty by settling at an early stage of the FSA's investigation. Were it not for this discount, the FSA said the penalty would have been £10m. (its good when they have the money to settle straight away and have a reduction in the fine:mad: )

Also is this meaning automatic pay backs for customers in that period above

David Bennett, A&L's chief executive, said: "I apologise sincerely for our shortcomings. We will be writing to every customer concerned and will be working with independent accountants and the FSA to ensure we put right any disadvantage

my friend had a letter on the 26th sept saying hed been paying a ppi that he shouldnt have on a acount that was closed and they put £877 into his bank. he didnt even know he was paying it nor for how long. They got in first there didnt they before he asked for it all back i suppose.

marshallka

diddydiner wrote: »

my friend had a letter on the 26th sept saying hed been paying a ppi that he shouldnt have on a acount that was closed and they put £877 into his bank. he didnt even know he was paying it nor for how long. They got in first there didnt they before he asked for it all back i suppose.

Has he checked the figures are correct. I would always get them checked here as there is statutory interest to go on top and also just refunding the payments is not enough. They have to put you back into the position as if you never had the insurance. Still good news though that they are trying on this one.:D

marshallka

angelwillow wrote: »

I had a loan with them in 2004 which I paid off early in 2005 so looks like I may have missed out and may still have a long winded claim...........
Bet they claim it only applies to loans from 2005 to 2007 and no other years.

Yeah but lets see if they handle your claim different now. They may have learn't to treat customers fairly!!

It is wrong about the dates thing. So unfair. They did nothing different in those years than the year of your loan.

gropinginthedark

I have another angle on this. About 10 years ago my wife inadvertently signed up for PPI on a relatively small loan (£4k) from HSBC. A few months later she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The PPI made the loan repayments while she was ill though at first they claimed that some symptoms she had visited the doctor with a few weeks before taking out the loan were compatible with the specific cancer and therefore the insurance was not valid as it was a pre-existing condition. The rules on that are that an undiagnosed condition is NOT a pre-existing condition as far as insurance is concerned. (The symptoms in question were indigestion and back ache which, in combination do occasionally indicate pancreatic cancer but would normally indicate a need for something like a modified diet and exercise).

Then she died. I phoned the Bank (who put me through to the underlying insurer) to advise them that they should pay off the loan in its entirity. The insurer said "the insurance cover was for illness not death". Patently rubbish but how many stressed and recently bereaved would just accept that? When I disagreed I was told I'd have to complete a new claim form and send a copy of the death certificate. I did and nothing happened. After a few weeks I chased and they denied receipt. I did another and handed it in at the HSBC branch to ensure delivery. After a few more weeks silence I chased and they said they'd lost it and wanted another claim form and death certificate. I spoke to someone at HSBC. I explained that they had sold the policy and as far as I was concerned it was therefore their responsibility to ensure that it was honoured. To their credit they got the loan paid off without further involving me.

My issue is that the insurers do get away with short changing their customers. I know someone who used to work in Norwich Union claims and she confirms that her role was to minimise payments regardless of the contractual undertakings in the policy. If she short changed a claimant, that was a success.
When an issue like this arises and manages to get a high media profile, the corporate response is that "it was an error by a junior member of staff" and that they would be reprimanded and retrained. So the effect is that the insurers reduce their costs by systematically cheating customers at, usually, no-risk and putting the blame on their staff while at the same time conniving with their staff to do exactly that. Only when a high profile issue where thousands have encountered the same specific problem as with A&L ppi does any penalty get applied. And the PPI rip-off has been common knowledge for what, 10-15 years? That's why I was annoyed that my wife had signed up to it. An insurer might claim that her decision was vindicated and I would agree were it not that the premiums are not proportionate to the level of risk the insurer is taking and that, as I found, the insurers claims process is intended to cheat the claimant.

Now lets draw a parallel with the legal position in respect of corporate software piracy - the legislation makes Company Directors liable to criminal prosecution and possible imprisonment and the excuse "it was an error by a junior member of staff" is not a defence. The directors are liable, it is their failure. They have failed to communicate, train staff and monitor the situation effectively. Yet another piece of legislation with real teeth when the injured parties are likely to be the big guys such as Microsoft. Where the injured party is you or I the legislation is comparatively toothless.
Im my example my "success" was to get the payment I was entitled to. I'd like to see a mechanism in place whereby if an individual is demonstrably lied to or short-changed by a corporate then restitution of the shortfall is not sufficient response but there is a statutory requirement to pay the individual compensation for trying to cheat them in the first place. At present, corporate dishonesty is rewarded by the absence of proportionate penalties for those few who are _caught_ cheating.

My vote at the next election would be for a party not beholden to corporates but which champions the citizen and small business. The trouble is there isn't one. A guy who overfills his dustbin gets a criminal record but company directors who cheat tens of thousands of ordinary people get away scot free. They aren't being penalised personally, at most the impact of the fine on A&L will only result in a couple of pence off the dividends.

marshallka

gropinginthedark wrote: »

I have another angle on this. About 10 years ago my wife inadvertently signed up for PPI on a relatively small loan (£4k) from HSBC. A few months later she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The PPI made the loan repayments while she was ill though at first they claimed that some symptoms she had visited the doctor with a few weeks before taking out the loan were compatible with the specific cancer and therefore the insurance was not valid as it was a pre-existing condition. The rules on that are that an undiagnosed condition is NOT a pre-existing condition as far as insurance is concerned. (The symptoms in question were indigestion and back ache which, in combination do occasionally indicate pancreatic cancer but would normally indicate a need for something like a modified diet and exercise).

Then she died. I phoned the Bank (who put me through to the underlying insurer) to advise them that they should pay off the loan in its entirity. The insurer said "the insurance cover was for illness not death". Patently rubbish but how many stressed and recently bereaved would just accept that? When I disagreed I was told I'd have to complete a new claim form and send a copy of the death certificate. I did and nothing happened. After a few weeks I chased and they denied receipt. I did another and handed it in at the HSBC branch to ensure delivery. After a few more weeks silence I chased and they said they'd lost it and wanted another claim form and death certificate. I spoke to someone at HSBC. I explained that they had sold the policy and as far as I was concerned it was therefore their responsibility to ensure that it was honoured. To their credit they got the loan paid off without further involving me.

My issue is that the insurers do get away with short changing their customers. I know someone who used to work in Norwich Union claims and she confirms that her role was to minimise payments regardless of the contractual undertakings in the policy. If she short changed a claimant, that was a success.
When an issue like this arises and manages to get a high media profile, the corporate response is that "it was an error by a junior member of staff" and that they would be reprimanded and retrained. So the effect is that the insurers reduce their costs by systematically cheating customers at, usually, no-risk and putting the blame on their staff while at the same time conniving with their staff to do exactly that. Only when a high profile issue where thousands have encountered the same specific problem as with A&L ppi does any penalty get applied. And the PPI rip-off has been common knowledge for what, 10-15 years? That's why I was annoyed that my wife had signed up to it. An insurer might claim that her decision was vindicated and I would agree were it not that the premiums are not proportionate to the level of risk the insurer is taking and that, as I found, the insurers claims process is intended to cheat the claimant.

Now lets draw a parallel with the legal position in respect of corporate software piracy - the legislation makes Company Directors liable to criminal prosecution and possible imprisonment and the excuse "it was an error by a junior member of staff" is not a defence. The directors are liable, it is their failure. They have failed to communicate, train staff and monitor the situation effectively. Yet another piece of legislation with real teeth when the injured parties are likely to be the big guys such as Microsoft. Where the injured party is you or I the legislation is comparatively toothless.
Im my example my "success" was to get the payment I was entitled to. I'd like to see a mechanism in place whereby if an individual is demonstrably lied to or short-changed by a corporate then restitution of the shortfall is not sufficient response but there is a statutory requirement to pay the individual compensation for trying to cheat them in the first place. At present, corporate dishonesty is rewarded by the absence of proportionate penalties for those few who are _caught_ cheating.

My vote at the next election would be for a party not beholden to corporates but which champions the citizen and small business. The trouble is there isn't one. A guy who overfills his dustbin gets a criminal record but company directors who cheat tens of thousands of ordinary people get away scot free. They aren't being penalised personally, at most the impact of the fine on A&L will only result in a couple of pence off the dividends.

First of all so sad to hear of your dear wife. It was very brave of you to post.

I read that only 20% of PPI claims actually do pay out. They do do anything to get out of claims being paid out.

Secondly could not agree more about the directors thing here. There is someone on the PPI reclaiming thread that has a disagreement with some company directors now. They case if minimal to what you went through but it is the principal of things here. They are liable in my eyes.

I think the whole system stinks. These people do set about to lie to us and mislead us and misrepresent themselves to us and get away with it. I would also like to see more happen in favour ot the consumer. I think your wife would be proud for speaking out here in what is right, fair and proper. I know I would.

A completely different senario here but this was my rant today about directors





So tiggrae tell me or anyone else here is it right for a company to open up and have a similar (very blummin similar!!) named company waiting in the background and then trade from that company and then liquidate it and then use the other company (that was waiting there), apply for a licence to trade from and continue in a way which misleads people into not knowing the difference. We all thought that click finance was click financial. Everyone that tried to help Di here thought they were the same company.

Surely then its a wise thing to do now for brokers. At registration open two companies (or more). Only licence one for now!! If things start to go pear shaped then go under and then use one of your other similar named companies that you actually had opened at companies house the same time as your trading company was launched. (REMEMBER THEN IT WAS OPENED THE SAME TIME SO ITS NOT PHOENIX!!! )

Its a right good loopole thing here. In fact why doesn't everyone do it!! It safeguards your name and also if anything crops up like the "payments protection insurance thing" in the future you have no repercussion as your company went "bump".

Yeah right - its ok to do - its not against the law - in fact no-one will want to know - you have not done anything wrong here -

And then you wonder why people get angry at the system...

THIS NEEDS CHANGING HERE. IT SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED AND THAT IS MY OPINION. WE SEEM TO HAVE LITTLE PROTECTION IN THIS TYPE OF THING.

And no tiggrae, I am not a lawyer and also do not actually "know" the laws regarding this but what i do know is it is not right, proper and fair and i think it needs addressing. I am a "consumer" and think that although not a lawyer we should be able to inform the authorities of things like this and how they AFFECT us as consumers. That is why when i helped with the letter for Di, who is also a consumer, i did not quote any laws in it as this was a "normal consumer" enquiry ABOUT the legalities of this. There were no accusations on it. All information was taken from public registers. I would be going mad now if I had to give up cause of the system. The system stinks.

I hope the authorities do look at this site every now and again and see what laws like this can do to an ordinary family living on the breadline.

Also should we have to have lawyers to write to the OFT or FSA or FOS?? They understand what we are saying surely. I thought they were there for the general public.

If people don't fight then nothing will ever change.
I don't know the laws, legalities etc but I do know of human decency..

angelwillow

Got my 'looking into it' letter today so we shall wait and see