Act now on mis-sold endowments: new article

mayb_2

I am not sure what has happened to the other stalwarts on this site Crazy Saver - perhaps they have moved to pastures new. There is certainly enough to chose from with the current economic crisis to address.

Dear dunstonh - hmm - statistics were probably produced by the finance industry itself and you know what is said about them. There are lies, damn lies and statistics. Was that Edward Heath? You know how hard it is to remember things if you are in that magical 70%!

I have to say that I do not fall into any of the parameters you describe dunstonh and neither did I miss the inference in this statement of yours.
It wouldnt be accepted by the ombudsman unless there was an overall trend. e.g. person making complaint has made claims which can be proven to be wrong. Person defending claim has evidenced some things. In areas where no proof is available one way or the other a balance of probability decision has to be made and thats when the views of one party or the other will sway a decision. It does work both ways.

I did not have a problem with claiming redress for my mortgage it was immediately accepted as a missale.

I did not use a template letter when claiming for a missold and churned savings plan for my pension (endowment).

I did produce written evidence - the company did not
I did show that my pension policy had been cancelled on the same day that the endowment had been purchased. Both provided by the same employee of the same company and confirmed in writing to the ombudsman by that same company
I did see the correspondence to the ombudsman from the company and they had lied and I could show that was the case
The company had closed the fund containing my 'savings' and not informed me
The FSA were aware of this and took no action despite it being a clear breach of their rules
No paperwork was produced at point of sale - no illustrations, no warnings
I was promised £30,000 at term - but nothing was put in writing
The one and only bonus statement I had did not refer to an endowment

The most interesting thing in the light of your post dunstonh - was a very short report that said that in a phone call to the person who had sold me my endowment, he remembered that he had done all that he was required to do.
He obviously fell into the 30% who can recall sales after 12 years. He did not ever confirm this himself and the company claimed they had not been able to contact the second person present. I have a feeling that the 30% with total recall were all sales people of one sort or another.

The ombudsman in his wisdom chose to think that on the balance of probability this had not been missold. This was mainly because in his opinion the fact that we had an endowment already (mortgage endowment immediate redress for missale remember) meant that we had knowledge of such things when we took out our savings plan two years later. Amazing as he was aware we had received redress for this. Perhaps he believed we had already had our share of the redress pot and didn't qualify for any more.

mayb_2

drtomtom how frustrating to wait four years to get the brush off in this way.

Did you enclose the letter you were referring to when you made your claim? That is definately a breach of the time bar rules and you must appeal the decision. You also have the right to ask for the actual ombudsman to look at your case if the answer you received was from an adjudicator (I think that is the term I am looking for).

good luck with that - I dread to think how much longer you will have to wait for this.

mayb_2

Nice to have you join us treliac - the more the merrier perhaps.

We had a copy of the fact find taken and it clearly showed that they had not given us any illustrations as it states that none was given on the fact find. The response to that was that it was not a requirement - Que??

The fact find did not asses our attitude to risk in any way. It would not matter how much evidence we produced this guy did not believe anybody would have bought a policy at home without getting all the information. He was far too young to have experience of the pru or the cis agent knocking on the door for his money.

I grew up with that at home and saw no reason not to trust these people. This never happened according to the adjudicator we dealt with - nobody would buy anything that way. These people were like friends after years of sharing a cup of tea each month and they would pop in a little sales talk while they were there. Scribble something on the back of a cigarette packet and present you with a figure. There you go Mrs ? we will see you alright with that one - thanks I will have another biscuit before I go. Did I really dream all of that? Apparently so. Never handed a cheque out to anyone at the end of term without them being amazed what we had done for them. Well he got that bit right anyway.

Crazy_Saver

I've been so wrapped up if fighting my case that I have been neglecting the question I originally asked nearly 3 years ago on this board.

I am also amazed at how little importance the FOS have put on it as well.

It was the question of what to do if I feel the "firm" have tampered with documents and added our signature to something we hadn't originally signed?

Dunstonh and others quite rightly pointed out that if I am accusing them of fraud, I need to be sure of my facts.

I do know that the document in question is a photocopy of a handwritten record of two meetings (both dated differently) we'd had with the advisor. At the bottom of the document it is clear to see that another document containing our signatures has been overlaid to make it look like one compete document. I can't believe they thought that we wouldn't notice:

• that the bottom half of the document is in a different typeset to the top half.
• it's dated prior to the meeting recorded
• there is a definate line where the two pieces of paper overlap!

When this was pointed out to the adjudicator his response was along the lines of...........even if the document has been "cobbled" (FOS terminology not mine) it doesn't change my opinion.

Since then, no mention has ever been made by the FOS of the document which I find quite disturbing. Surely if a firm are capable of cobbling documents, how can these same documents be accepted in their defence?

The reason I am so concerned, is that this is the documented where the advisor has written that I fully understood that our investment was not guaranteed.:mad:

I'm still not sure whether we should take this matter further.

mayb_2

Well Crazy Saver it might be as well to await the final, final outcome of your case before looking at that as you have enough on your plate. Although I agree with you that they should not be allowed to commit fraud - hasn't any one told them that is apparently our role? - I had no success myself in having this sort of thing addressed by the FSA although they agreed with me that this was wrong they did not feel the need to act. Can't imagine wherelse you could go, although you could take it to the small claims court.

I would have thought if it was fraud it is actually a criminal offence so perhaps you should take it to the police - who have special units for fraud as I understand it. That may be a drastic step in one light, but you have lost your right to redress simply because these people would rather commit fraud than allow you to successfully accuse them of a missale. As dunstonh often points out, it is the sales person who will be answerable for that - what better motive for disguising the truth of that sale.

The Ombudsman not only refused to take our word backed up by the evidence we supplied, but when he asked the company questions about the sale and they did not respond, he must have decided on balance of probability that they would have given him the right answers if only they could be bothered.

The company added policies on to our history in order to support the ombudsman's subsequent? decision to believe we knew what we were doing as we had bought these things before.

One of them had reached its maturity so we called their bluff and asked them to pay out on it. Then it transpired that the number of the policy was attributable to nothing and they could not explain why it was on the fact find supplied to the ombudsman (in different pen as was the reference to the amount of money we had to spend after all our outgoings were accounted for - about £600 per month???? love it don't you, we hadn't got 2 halfpennies to rub together let alone spending money). The picture was of these rich folks deciding to invest their fun money on yet another endowment. Like we rich folks do, we bought it from a doorstep salesman - all be it a regular one. I don't think so. But, it would appear, only people like us have to exist in the real world - an unknown place to some.

Another one turned out to be a very old suspended pension which had also reached maturity year's before but never been paid out on. We now get the grand sum of £670 a year on that as we pointed this out to them.

These are the reasons you and I as well as treliac and others continue to 'battle' it out on this forum. We know what can happen and are willing to keep suporting those who are only just finding out.

lin_ho

dunstonh wrote: »

They are correct in using the 65k figure. My "guess" is that at some point you increased your borrowing. The endowment was not increased (which it cant be) and no top up or alternative was arranged. That isnt the fault of the original endowment adviser and no liability for the extra amount stays with them. You need to find out where the extra money came from

do you mean using 85k? as thats what they used. mortgage was 65k. i believe the increased mortgage came in the early years when they charged us gross while we paid net as advised and we didnt qualify for MIRAs being self employed

You cant have a pension endowment.

my ignorance. we have an endowment with a pension plan

The calculation should compare the options and put in you in a financial position you would have been had the alternative been done.

the alternative would be just a repayment mortgage with no pension as we didnt qualify for tax relief on the pension as being self employed we had more then sufficient other tax allowances to produce no taxable income. what is the normal position on this? i understand revenue says they should return the contribution. can i claim a return plus interest and have the pension cancelled?

Endowments . They have to have at least 10 years with the same premium to be an endowment (and qualify for tax purposes).

ours was less then 10 years - 4 years then we paid lump sums to clear mortgage ( but in the calculations they ignored the balance difference) and moved to another property and they advised another endowment mortgage with the pension plan and this was reduced - paid for another 4 years then it was paid up with retirement. wondered where was the guarantee - to repay the morgage went - will never be repaid at all now.

any advice please?

thanks

Beduffshirl

I'm new to this and looking at a possible miss selling on behalf of my father. Is it still possible to claim if payments were stopped to the Endowment a while ago ?

dunstonh

Beduffshirl wrote: »

I'm new to this and looking at a possible miss selling on behalf of my father. Is it still possible to claim if payments were stopped to the Endowment a while ago ?

You have 3 years from first being notified of a high risk of shortfall.

If that has happened and expired (which it has on around 3/4 of endowments) then its too late. If it hasnt then its not.

lizclassic54

• My 30 year low start endownment was sold when purchasing a house. I was 35 yrs at the time and so my repayments would continue way past my normal retirement age (then 60 yrs for women) and the returns, 13%, looked impressive. It didnt seem to be a risk and allowed me to by the house. The broker was in fact a brother of the estate agent!
• I sent a letter, within the 3 year time limit, to the broker in Feb 2006 (used martin template if i remember rightly) and was asked to fill out a questionnare. One question asked about any shares I held when sold the endownment. They said that they (along with other brokers) were awaiting a high court judgement on a test case and that until that matter was resolved they would not be in a position to move forward! They also asked me to supply outstanding documentation even though Norwich Union had supplied these to both of us (one assumes)
• In May 2007 the broker told me that as far as they were concerned, I was aware of the risks etc etc and that they were "sorry" but no compensation was due.
• Should I persue this any further i.e. do i have a case for miss-selling? If so is it worth going via the FSA? A friend used a intermediary who took a percentage but at least she received SOME compensation.
• I have since made this policy "paid up" so this may affect my position?
• Any help would be gratefully received and if its a waste of time I can shred the paperwork as part of my spring clean!

dunstonh

One question asked about any shares I held when sold the endownment.

Which is a valid question

They said that they (along with other brokers) were awaiting a high court judgement on a test case and that until that matter was resolved they would not be in a position to move forward!

There is no such case. That is a strange response. Although it looks like they did review the complaint under the correct methods after saying that.

They also asked me to supply outstanding documentation even though Norwich Union had supplied these to both of us (one assumes)

The insurer will not have anything to supply the advising firm. They have asked you to provide documentation as effectively you are accusing them of fraud. They want to see your evidence for this. Nothing you have said suggests mis-sale and if you used a similar wording in your complaint and had no evidence of wrong doing and their records have no evidence of wrong doing then a complaint will be rejected.

Should I persue this any further i.e. do i have a case for miss-selling? If so is it worth going via the FSA? A friend used a intermediary who took a percentage but at least she received SOME compensation.

You cant. You are now timed out. Once a complaint has been rejected, you have 6 months to appeal it with the FOS. If you dont excercise that option in that time you cannot make a complaint again. The FSA dont handle consumer complaints so wont be interested in helping you.