Act now on mis-sold endowments: new article

Crazy_Saver

mayb wrote: »

I have to tell you dawnwool that you are not alone in your experience, we and others on this site found the Ombudsman favoured the Company when deciding whether our endowment policy was a missale. Did you actually sign the paper that said you were risk takers for instance. This would have been what they called a fact find and you can ask the company for a copy of this.

Then again mayb they may find that their FAs company is capable of finding signatures when they don't exist! Ours did!

Our FA's company overlaid our signatures onto a document that just happened to mention our attitude to risk then photocopied the whole thing and passed it off as an original document. The date we had written next to our signatures was earlier than the date at the top of the document, and there was an obvious line where the two pieces of paper met. The font was also different on the top half of the document compared to the font next to our signatures.

We challenged the FOS adjudicator on this and his reply was that although he can't prove that the document has been tampered with, it wouldn't change his opinion anyway.

Of course our reply was that if the company are "allegedly" capable of this kind of practice, does this not prove something about their honesty, or lack of it?

The adjudicator never did reply to this question:mad:

Our list of concerns regarding other fabrications of the truth goes on and on but I won't bore posters by repeating myself.

Good Luck dawnwool!

mayb_2

Crazy Saver I don't have to tell you I empathise with you totally on this. It is a fact that there are none so blind as those who will not see. We had things added in to our paperwork that hadn't happened yet too.

I have to smile that this thread is still referred to as a 'new article', but for those who haven't been there yet it is a new article. The shame is that these issues are never going to be addressed unless someone high up in the chain gets on board on our behalf.

That is why it is important for people like us to keep posting or each new complaint on these lines looks like the only one. If people become aware that this is more like the norm in these cases we might just get something underway. Someone may just be able to do it better than we did when they understand what they are up against. So more power to the elbow for anyone fighting this now. Perhaps we should get a petition going - to Martin or Parliament or am I just dreaming now?

Retired_I.F.A.

If your not happy with the regulators ruling then take it to court. As you would have to with any other form of misselling.

mayb_2

I think you are forgetting we don't have any money retired IFA - that's why we are complaining in the first place.

Retired_I.F.A.

Then your entitled to legal aid aren't you.?

mayb_2

I don't think it is as straightforward as that - we are not on benefits, we just don't have the sort of money that would pay for a court case.

I know from the time they assessed our earnings before establishing whether my son had to pay university tuition fees. They look at your earnings not your outgoings. In the end we had to get a loan to pay the fees as they considered we should pay full fees for four years.

A court would not make a punitive award, as we found when we discussed these issues before on the forum. because of that the return was unlikely to outweigh the cost and there was no proof of an amount we had been promised. I think as much as a monetary return, people posting on here would like an acceptance of the wrongs done to us and the stress and worry it caused us, not to mention the detriment to savings, pensions and the like - our future plans having to be abandoned. These could only be addressed by a punitive award - that just isn't going to happen under present conditions. Thanks for the thought though.

Retired_I.F.A.

So what you saying is you've been to one "court" the ombudsman which is funded by the folks in the industry who along with the other policyholders fund all the compensation. The ombudsman looked at the evidence and ruled against you. you still disagree and know the next step is to fight it in a real court but your not that convinced you will win so wont risk the potential cost of losing.

Seems to me your not that sure you were missold in the first place.

You either put it behind you and get on with life or fight with all you have I reckon.

Fighting worked out for me eventually. When 4 solicitors all told me when I got divorced ""off the record forget going for joint residency of your son as you dont stand a dogs chance if your a man."

So I represented myself in court.The judge repremanded the family court welfare officers who recommended I have 1 day a week contact, for being biased. Then in his summing up acknowledged the 8 written reasons why it was in my sons best interest to have two homes, acknowledged my ex gave no reason at all for not agreeing to shared residency, and then ruled I could have access but one day a week.

That took me a few hours of studying the law, even more studying of court procedure, and about a week to type all the relevent papers up but I did not give up. It was followed by 11 months of waiting for the appeals court to hear me out and even more paperwork but the two appeal court judges were superb. They told me I had no case for appeal as the first judge had done nothing wrong in the eyes of the law as it was a judgement call akin to a refs opinion if the ball was over the line or not but then told me how to get another court case going and backed me all the way including giving me a 9th reason in their written support.

Cost to me... A trip to London and about a tenner in stationary.

But thats me, I'm a stubbon !!!!!!!, I'll fight the world if I believe I'm right.

mayb_2

Well done you!

Forgive me if I don't go down that route with you Retired IFA, we have been through all the arguments on here before and the law doesn't allow punitive damages in these cases - we followed through on every other avenue as have others. I cannot remember all the arguments put forward but did look up the laws concerned at the time and found the opinions given on here to be based on fact. I am sure old posters will tell you I neither lack stubborness or a willingness to fight when I believe I am right.

In the end the financial companies hold a very special place in the heart of government.

Retired_I.F.A.

The law doesn't allow punitive damages in these cases

To be honest I did not know that but It's what I would expect.

What I was trying to get over was the ombudsman is akin to the district judge who first ruled against, me he's making a judgement call like a footie ref. Go to a higher Judge and without a written g-tee that the endowment was going to repay the mortgage it boils down to you word as to what was said against the salesmans and no one in reality woud expect anything other than the case to be dismissed regardless of what paperwork is available.

In other words the law says tough you have no proof. Wheras the government has setup a regime where the innocent pay a seperate court to award damages also paid by the innocent based on the opinion of a so called expert. From my point of view as a with profit policyholder and as an ex IFA the government have done their utmost to destroy insurance companies.

mayb_2

They have also knocked some very serious amounts off of some very innocent people's savings and pensions - particularly at a time when state pensions are becoming a thing of the past. So lots and lots of poor people all arriving at retirement about the same time - some still not having paid off their mortgages and having no money set aside for retirement. Is that what they call forward planning up there in the government benches?

Bit like the number of people now losing their houses because of the subprime fiasco - they didn't see that coming either - yet I could. Perhaps I should offer to help out and become one of those highly paid government advisors!