A Lesson Learned - Leave the Stock Market Alone

Sunday_Morning

Nearly 12 years ago I made the mistake of taking out a PEP (now ISA) based mortgage with the Halifax.

The value of it is now over £10,000 less than the amount I have put in. Effectively I have lost £10,000.

Had I taken the same amount of money over the years depositing it into an Icelandic bank, the government would have insured that I lost nothing. It's possible, though I don't know how this worked, that it would have also guaranteed me some extortionate interest as well!

Regardless of the interest aspect, the lesson learned for me is that my money is far safer deposited with a dodgy foreign bank rather than invested in a British run investment plan.

I've changed my mortgage to a repayments one and shall not make the same mistake again.

swiss69

In these situations I would always say put a complaint in - You have nothing to lose as the end result can be no worse than it is now - The best result is that they wont be able to find your paperwork and if that is the case will almost certainly find in your favour!! You could end up with a fair amount paid off your mortgage as a result. I have seen it happen before with Endowment complaints. In my experience the majority of complaints the banks settled with Endowments were due to lack of paperwork...The bank would never like to admit it has lost your file! Worth a try!