Act now on mis-sold endowments: new article

dreamylittledream

mayb wrote: »

I thought that an adjudication from the Ombudsman was binding on the Company but not on you - or am I muddling this up with something else?

A Final decision by the Ombudsman is only binding on both parties if accepted by the complainant.

An adjudication is binding on neither party even if accepted.

sheilavw

Re my earlier post some weeks ago.......End of 88 when we moved we were advised by our solictor not to go with the endowment the nat west were offering (standard life) we still have illustration nat west gave us, but to go with norwich union. He told us it would pay off mortgage and we could have a nice cruise with left overs!. Due to growing concerns we tried to claim.The solictor now retired but practice asked for everything etc. Further letters on they said they had contacted solicitor and he never sold endowments. Contacted Norwich Union who confirmed he did, and amount and date of commission recd. Solicitor said send it in. Now 6 weeks on he has wrote back and said they are still denying it, monies paid must have been just for introducing us. The policy at the time was even sent to our solicitor who forwarded it on to us (we sent a copy of covering lett to solic) Rang Norwich Union yesterday and they are sending us the 9 pieces of paperwork filled in by solic. They said go to law society because they were regulated, but they were unhelpful when I called. Should I go to Ombudsman instead, or back to solictor once I receive the 9 pages of paperwork definitely proving that it was a sale and not just a recommendation. Its all very confusing!

dunstonh

Should I go to Ombudsman instead

You cannot. The FOS didnt cover solicitors. The Law Society did.

Sale of the product without advice is possible. By todays standards, what the solicitor did would be classed as advice. However, back then it was basically substituting one application [to natwest] with another to NU. NU wouldnt know if it was direct offer, direct to provider, execution only or advice so they wont be much help to you at all.

mayb_2

treliac - I have to smile if a little sadly - you are so like me when I joined this site and raising all the same sort of arguments and getting the same responses from the same people. Despite this site and all that is said on it by complainants, the reason for this particular part of the forum after all, some people will still be here telling each new person that there weren't many missales and that really there is a lot of fraud. I agree about the lot of fraud but I don't agree about which side its comming from. Look at sheilavw's case for a start.

Keep it coming treliac, it is refreshing the memories of those who are stuck in a thought rut and encouraging others to stick to their guns.

dreamylittledream

dunstonh wrote: »

You cannot. The FOS didnt cover solicitors. The Law Society did.

Sale of the product without advice is possible. By todays standards, what the solicitor did would be classed as advice. However, back then it was basically substituting one application [to natwest] with another to NU. NU wouldnt know if it was direct offer, direct to provider, execution only or advice so they wont be much help to you at all.

Law Society has no powers to award redress if the sale was before April 1991 regardless of whether advice was given.

In short I'm afraid you've reached the end of the road in the complaints process. Only option left is legal action.

Crazy_Saver

dunstonh wrote: »

You shouldnt assume that all advisers are bad and you shouldnt assume all consumers are angels.

Spot on dunston.

But one also should remember that some advisors aren't as honest as they could be (present company excepted of course)and some consumers really are genuine.

sheilavw

Thanks for replies everyone. Surely its not fair to have no form of redress? How can we fight our case without it costing? We clearly remember what the solicitor did yet we cannot now do anything about this and we are the ones losing out.

dunstonh

sheilavw wrote: »

Thanks for replies everyone. Surely its not fair to have no form of redress? How can we fight our case without it costing? We clearly remember what the solicitor did yet we cannot now do anything about this and we are the ones losing out.

If its pre-regulation for that individual it would be unfair from their point of view if you could. It would be like prosecuting smokers who smoked in a public place 5 years ago.

You have an NU policy which are generally not too bad. You may well find that it isnt cost effective to take any action against them.

treliac

You shouldnt assume that all advisers are bad and you shouldnt assume all consumers are angels.

With over 25 years’ experience of working with people in a professional and psychological context, I am under no illusions about the capacity for
dishonesty.

This debate doesn’t change the fact that, all those years ago, the average man in the street was unworldly about finances, mortgages and investments and so was easy prey for finance professionals who were raking in the big profits to be had.

P.S. We’ve lost well in excess of “only a few thousand" (as if 'only a few thousand' is of little consequence anyway?)

Crazy_Saver

Quote:
I can’t imagine that all these people claiming a mis-sale were avid gamblers who decided, just for the fun of it or because it possibly cost a bit less each month

Oh yes they did. You are going back to a time when the mortgages were around £200pm and the earnings for first time buyers was often under £10k a year. The savings could often be around £20pm on that monthly cost.

If as you say dunsonh, most advisors were up front and honest, why were they willing to let so many consumers gamble the security of their houses in this way? Why weren't they trying to talk us out of taking these policies? As I have said so many times before, we didn't ask for an endowment, but we were very strongly advised to have it!

Quote:
to pay into a policy year after year with the view that they might finally have to sell their home (the foundation of their family’s security) or end up having to pay a heck of a lot more money just to keep it.

Most endowments that are in shortfall are are only a few thousand away. Many of those have sufficient time to put a bit more aside to make up the potential shortfall which in real terms is quite small.

But there are also many showing very significant shortfalls. Remember my £33,000 shortfall!

Your implications would seem to cast aspersions on the integrity of the MSE site. Surely all the advice on mis-sold mortgages hasn’t been given with the intention of encouraging people to commit fraud?

There has been significant numbers of opportunistic and fraudulent complaints. There are no doubts that many endowments were mis-sold. However, it was nowhere near the scale that has been seen. A lot of the complaints that result in redress are because the file is missing documents or just doesnt exist. Not because they were mis-sold.

A sad but true reflection of the society we live in today.

Even those that have run the FSA, FOS and been involved in the mis-selling issues at a high level have admitted that fraudulent or opportunistic claims have been a problem.

As much as I agree with you here, why is there never any mention of the fraudulent defence issues arising from some of the unscrupulous IFAs and their companies?