Act now on mis-sold endowments: new article

magpiecottage

dunstonh wrote: »

I remember sitting in a branch of a building society giving advice despite not being employed by that building society. More innocent and friendly days back then. It wouldnt happen now.

Bizarrely, that used to work quite well. Although there was normally a financial arrangement between the adviser and the lender, the advisers were generally more competent than employees under direct pressure from their managers to make a sale.

Radu

In Q3 1989 I bought a house with a friend, and as we all know, only an endowment was put on the table with all the normal promises.

In the early 1990s, I bough him out and added another Endowment to the original one, again not being offered any other solution.

The term has now come to the end. One endowment DID perform, even with profit. (Whoopee!) the other failed dismaley with a shortfall of around £8K. Back in the naughties, I contacted the well known now publically owned society with a claim, and was awarded £4K ish. However, it now transpires that will not cover the shortfall, at the time, I was not so "up" on these dam things, plus was having other dramas so didn't really have time/money to pursue (bad decision perhaps)

Q1) Am I eligible for another claim for under performing.
Q2) Said society are trying to wiggle out of any responsibility, but doesn't "transfer of Engagement" apply to any mortgage they acquired when they where buying up all the smaller companies ?

Now it gets better.. Six weeks on from maturity of the second endowment, we are still awaiting for the funds to appear in the account. It took them four weeks to send the details of interest to the edowment people. The Endowment people coughed up without any problems, but now said building society/bank can't find the monies.. and they are still charging me interest. (cheeky ***** ) even though I have insisted they freeze the account.

Q3) would I have any chance of going at them for all the agro it's caused me (Time, telephone calls, grey hairs, blood pressure, new set of teeth..) the latest phone call was 80 mins... more blood pressure/closer to the funny farm.


Thoughts?

Radu.

magpiecottage

Radu wrote: »

Q1) Am I eligible for another claim for under performing.

No. Investment performance is not, and never has been, grounds for complaint.

Q2) Said society are trying to wiggle out of any responsibility, but doesn't "transfer of Engagement" apply to any mortgage they acquired when they where buying up all the smaller companies ?

They did have a liability. However, as you complained previously, you cannot do so again. The redress you were awarded was equal to the amount you would have paid off your mortgage at that time - less the amount you would have received if you had cashed in the endowment at that time and used that money, as well as the redress, to reduce the amount you owed and changed to a repayment mortgage.

The fact that you did not do so is your problem, not theirs, and the Financial Ombudsman Service will not help you.

Q3) would I have any chance of going at them for all the agro it's caused me (Time, telephone calls, grey hairs, blood pressure, new set of teeth..) the latest phone call was 80 mins... more blood pressure/closer to the funny farm.

Unlikely - it seems to have been largely self inflicted.

Radu

magpiecottage wrote: »

Radu wrote: »

Q1) Am I eligible for another claim for under performing.

No. Investment performance is not, and never has been, grounds for complaint.
They did have a liability. However, as you complained previously, you cannot do so again. The redress you were awarded was equal to the amount you would have paid off your mortgage at that time - less the amount you would have received if you had cashed in the endowment at that time and used that money, as well as the redress, to reduce the amount you owed and changed to a repayment mortgage.

The fact that you did not do so is your problem, not theirs, and the Financial Ombudsman Service will not help you.

Unlikely - it seems to have been largely self inflicted.

Thank you for your honest reply. Halifax are now being quite robust and still being very unhelpful, it's taken nearly three months to get to stage where the mortgage could be closed. That I will bring up with the ombudsman. (parties in breweries etc.)

They are refusing to stop adding interest while we sort out the complaints with the ombudsmen which I think is unfair to say the least.

There has been so much mis-information banded around over the last 15 years with these dam things, which has left me severely bruised and lacking in "trust" of any bank or so called FSA

But I'm sure they will be queuing up for my business in the future. but I'll be ready and will drive a very hard so that this nonsense dose not happen again.

Radu.

dunstonh

There has been so much mis-information banded around over the last 15 years with these dam things, which has left me severely bruised and lacking in "trust" of any bank or so called FSA

The FSA no longer exist. Replaced with the FCA. The FSA did have its faults. time will tell if the FCA is any different.

magpiecottage

dunstonh wrote: »

The FSA no longer exist. Replaced with the FCA. The FSA did have its faults. time will tell if the FCA is any different.

The FSA now only stands for Food Standards Agency.

I suppose it might be able to help Radu with his parties in breweries!:beer:

gawk

Hi People
I'm enquiring on behalf of a friend. (Hope I'm in the right place ) He has an endowment policy that is due to "mature" in a few months. He is struggling financially so i asked a few questions and he told me about the endowment policy. He must have taken it out 25 years ago almost. He told me after some years he got the warning letters saying the policy needed to be topped up, which he did.
I have encouraged him to complain, but he is worried it will effect the final settlement in some way. I'm not sure if it too late anyway but would love some advice so i can pass it on to him. Until i mentioned about mis-selling he was totally unaware of it.
Because of this great website I have previously claim £2000 back because of mis sold a endowment.

Many Thanks

Gary

dunstonh

I have encouraged him to complain, but he is worried it will effect the final settlement in some way.

It wont have any impact apart from one or two providers that have Mortgage endowment promise figures who will remove that benefit if the complaint is successful.

I'm not sure if it too late anyway but would love some advice so i can pass it on to him.

He has three years to complain from first being notified of a high risk of a shortfall. That is the middle rate projection not hitting target. Most of those went out between 2001 and 2005 and by 2008, most endowments were timebarred from complaint.

magpiecottage

dunstonh wrote: »

He has three years to complain from first being notified of a high risk of a shortfall. That is the middle rate projection not hitting target.

Actually, it is the high rate. Middle rate missing but higher rate achieving is only an amber letter.

osmanager

Questions
Saw this article in the dailymail (cant post links so this is the closest I could do) /money/news/article-2554472/Four-million-savers-short-changed-Aviva-compensation-Insurers-323million-bill-merger-blunder.html

I am one of these people - I don't consider I was miss-sold as I could see that if market go up and down so could the amount paid out.

I was not expecting a shortfall but knew of the possibility.

However this article says in some cases a 20% loss could happen!

I was never told there could be a loss - so even though I think the time period for complaints may have passed should I now complain?

Also the article says over 350 errors have been identified.

How can I find out if my policy is one that might have any of these errors in it?
Is there someone who can check? If so who?
Thanks