Act now on mis-sold endowments: new article

TeeVee21

Thanks Mayb I think I will look into taking part of the loan as a repayment mortgage.

treliac

The more I read here, the more I get the feeling that FOS decisions can be made with some arbitrariness. I won't be satisfied if the outcome of my complaint lies with the particular feelings or knowledge or bias of one person who will make the final decision. I would certainly, then, be looking to challenge not only that decision but the general consistency of decision-making and standards that apply within the FOS.

The best plan as I see it, seems to be to continue to gather the experiences that are posted on here and keep them in mind as the complaint progresses. I will have at the ready, too, information from the FOS's own site in respect of how complaints should be responded to / redress calculated. I shall be asking questions if I have any doubts about proceedings.

gardening_diva

dreamylittledream wrote: »

Something to bear in mind however, is the vast majority of redress calculations are completed correctly. Therefore employing a third party may not assist you in increasing redress, if the calc was correct to start with (which is quite likely, but by no means certain, to be the case).

Yep - I can see what you are saying. In our case though, the FOS have agreed that our insurance company did not use the 'usual' methods to calculate our compensation. But they could/would not tell us if the offer would be better or worse if it was re-calculated using the standard approach!
That's what I am finding so frustrating! If all else fails I will cough up the £50 to Exasoft to see what figures their web site churns out for us.

dreamylittledream

gardening_diva wrote: »

Yep - I can see what you are saying. In our case though, the FOS have agreed that our insurance company did not use the 'usual' methods to calculate our compensation. But they could/would not tell us if the offer would be better or worse if it was re-calculated using the standard approach!
That's what I am finding so frustrating! If all else fails I will cough up the £50 to Exasoft to see what figures their web site churns out for us.

Hmmmm...one of the reason the FOS is evasive over calculation issues is that most involve current surrender values, which naturally vary from the date they are issued.

A calculation can be done 'wrongly', but given the timescale for getting the error corrected, a rise in the surrender value of the policy can wipe out the gain this should have given.

That said the FOS frequently play dumb over some simple errors that will almost always increase redress.

If you post some details of what the current methodology is I might be able to give you an idea over whether pusuing the matter is worthwhile. Do you have a copy of the MF calculation currently performed by the firm?

treliac

Dreamy, how do you know so much about the FOS?

dreamylittledream

treliac wrote: »

Dreamy, how do you know so much about the FOS?

I've spent a large portion of my life dealing with them!

I'm the technical manager for financial services claims at a solicitor's firm and previous to that ex regulated complaints handler at a former building society so I've seen them for a number of years on both sides of the fence!

treliac

dreamylittledream wrote: »

I've spent a large portion of my life dealing with them!

I'm the technical manager for financial services claims at a solicitor's firm and previous to that ex regulated complaints handler at a former building society so I've seen them for a number of years on both sides of the fence!

That's very interesting, an allround knowledge and understanding. I'd enjoy having a long conversation with you!! Thanks for sharing your perspective with everyone on the forum.

:T

mayb_2

Treliac we found the member of the ombudsman service to have made a decision very much in line with his own thinking and 'experience' - I think he actually quoted that in his experience such and such would have been the case - as he sounded to young to have acquired any, we were very concerned. So we did as you plan to do and challenged his decision with the Ombudsman, who found nothing wrong with the process he had applied to our case and supported his decision. Then we went above his head and got the same sort of response - nobody would look at his actual decision - but looked to see that he had gone through all the correct procedures. There does not appear to be a person who would examine the thinking and decision making process. Don't want to depress you but you may need to know in order to plan your approach to the Ombudsman and perhaps raise different issues step by step.

I do think an MP may be able to put in a word, but as I say we didn't go that route. The thing that gave us most concern was a declaration that, as this was not a court of law, the Ombudsman did not have to look at all of the evidence and something along the lines of ,particularly if he felt it was unlikely to alter his decision. Difficult to understand how he knew whether it would alter his decision if he hadn't looked at it.

I am going back a few years now and have buried although not thrown away the paperwork. It becomes like picking at a scab, we did the best we could at the time and when we ran out of avenues to pursue, put our finances in order as best we could.

We took our money and spent it on a cruise - a holiday of a lifetime - and pretended we had been saving for this and not a pension. It helped. We have an interest only mortgage and save as much as we can in ISA's in case we want to pay it off - we will probably have to sell up instead and buy a cheaper house, if we want to clear this and have something towards a pension. We want to live our lives now - have a few adventures - I may not be well enough to enjoy this sort of thing in my old age.

Many people are sitting on their assets - your house is worth a lot of money only if you sell it or go for an equity release scheme - they are not all ripoffs and we will look at that at the end of the mortgage period. Where there is a will there is a way. Whatever happens don't let it take over and get in the way of your life.

As the pensioners become a bigger and bigger part of the voting system in our ageing society, we will have to use our votes to get ourselves a better deal in the future.

treliac

Mayb, as ever you've given a very supportive and personal account, for which I thank you. Of course, I don't know how hard a ride we are going to get with this yet and am just trying to prepare myself for every possibility. Might not be necessary, but my experience to date with the ins. company is not encouraging with regard to their honesty.

If it comes to it, I'll certainly try our MP, though I wouldn't hold my breath for a miracle!

As you say, the best plan seems to be to prepare carefully, bearing in mind the stories people are relating on the forum and be aware of the issues step by step. I realise that it will be up to us to spell things out to the FOS, e.g. re our aversion to risk, as they will be drawing conclusions and it's better to ensure things are clear before rather than after decisions have been made.

I'm sitting here at the computer with a sea of papers round me, trying to make sense of them all and kicking myself again for being so naive and just taking what we were told for granted all those years ago. There was so much we should have understood at the time but didn't and we didn't realise there was a need to scrutinise or question things. I've learnt some overdue lessons already with this. One thing at least, I don't give up without fighting to the end.

By the way, did you read my PM to you?

treliac x

mr_green_3

My brother has just discovered that he may have been mis-sold an endowment policy. He has had it for about ten years but on reading this forum I have come accross the fact that you can only claim if it was bought within the last six years or 3 years from when you realised it was mis-sold, whichever is the longer. But if it is over 6years since it was sold surely it does not matter when he discovered it as the crucial time is whichever is the longer i.e. six years. OR am I mis-reading this somehow. Can someone enlighten me. I hope this is posted in the right place