Act now on mis-sold endowments: new article

mayb_2

defenderoftheweak - thank you for your post. I do recognise that the posts here represent opinions and I note that you do not add your credentials to your posts. However, I do think that dunstonh gives very strong and definate opinions and he does post that he is a financial advisor - it may, therefore not be obvious to others that these are opinions he is giving when reading his posts.

Your opinions are created by your experience in your field, his from his experience as a financial advisor and mine and such as CrazySaver's are the opinions of the consumer.

CrazySaver of course I am not offended by your post. I am aware from past ones that you have had good advice and thanked dunstonh and others for it.

The point of this forum is that we can all have and express our opinions freely. I am sure dunstonh would be the first to admit that he has strong opinions about fraudulent claims (the word fraudulent is used in his posts in this respect) However, he takes great umbridge when I express the opinion that there were fraudulent sales made of endowment mortgages. I feel as entitled to express this opinion as he does his own.

dunstonh I feel your comments

And what are your qualifications in economics and financial services which give you that superior knowledge?

However, I am not accepting your comments that people selling them were commiting fraud and the that the average consumer was so stupid that they didnt know that it was linked to investments.

were both uncalled for and deserving of a strong response.

You are claiming a superiority of opinion and that the average consumer (including myself as I feel I fall into that category) knew that they were buying something linked to investments. If you start from the premis that they knew what they were doing then they must be about to make a fraudulent claim along with all of those others you refer to.

I would start from the premis that they may have been missold as many others have been, and that neither you or I know the details of the sale. It is therefore advice on how to pursue their claims that they are looking for not a judgement on whether they are entitled to do that or not.

In cases where a time bar has been imposed this does not deflect from the fact that these people may have been missold and have been, unfairly in my opinion, barred from pursuing that claim. As defenderoftheweak has said of one of his clients- it is not unreasonable to allow them to do that. It may be a necessary process for them and they may succeed if the company has not correctly given them the opportunity and the information to make a claim before the time bar.

ps dunstonh where have I ever said that all sales of endowments were fraudlulent?

EdInvestor

It is using borrowed money to invest. The endowment was using borrowed money to invest.

I'd have thought most people used endowments to buy a home to live in, rather than to "invest". Back in the days when most of the misselling took place, unless you were in the minority who had access to a council property, you had very little chance of getting somewhere decent to live unless you bought. There was virtually no private property available for rent.

For much of the 1980s the building societies had a monopoly on lending and made loads of money from the insurers out of flogging endowments.In some areas there were virtually no mortgages available for people who didn't want endowments.You either took the endowment or you didn't get a mortgage at all.

Greed had nothing to do with it.

mayb_2

I quite agree with that statement Edinvestor and it was nothing to do with stupidity either.

The council where I lived had temporarily closed its housing list to anybody not already married when my husband and I were looking for a first home because of a housing crisis. We needed a home before we could get married or we would have nowhere to live together.

We were offered a mortgage by my husbands employer as long as we didn't move more than 30 miles away from his workplace. It was a godsend, although we couldnt afford to eat for the whole of a week and relied on what we called the redcross parcels of food that my inlaws gave us. We also had to move out of London the full 30 miles to find a house we could 'afford to buy'. We had to cover the cost of travelling back into London to work. After having children and my husband having changed his job we needed to move and had to get a commercial mortgage. Interest rates were horrendously high and the only way we could fix the rate and get cheaper repayments (for the first two years) was to take this endowment mortgage. That is all we knew about it and the thought that anyone thinks we were motivated by greed and the need to invest money is ludicrous and very annoying.

I am sure there are some fraudsters out there making claims of misselling but I find it unlikely that they would be consulting this site at the last minute to find out how to do it or that they exist in their thousands. and are succeeding in their claims. I am however, convinced as are others more knowledgeable than me, that many thousands of endowments were missold: I think many of those will go without the redress they are due because financial companies are not giving redress unless the person missold knows how to claim and does so and are now imposing a time bar.

suse142

Hi,

I've just had my first reply to my complaint letter. As well as lots of difficult questions to answer it also has a letter of authority addressed to "to whom it may concern". What can they do with this, as in how far can they go with it? Can they present it to my bank and ask for banking details?

I've nothing to hide but it seems give them carte blanche with my affairs!

The letter has come from a company called Sesame; has anyone heard of them?
thanks,
Suse

dunstonh

The letter has come from a company called Sesame; has anyone heard of them?

They are the UK's biggest network of IFAs. I am a member of Sesame. Sesame was formed by the merging of 5 smaller networks.

Basically, IFAs have choice of dealing with compliance in house or outsourcing it to companies. Sesame are one of these companies.

I've just had my first reply to my complaint letter. As well as lots of difficult questions to answer it also has a letter of authority addressed to "to whom it may concern". What can they do with this, as in how far can they go with it? Can they present it to my bank and ask for banking details?

Letters of authority are often obtained to allow them to go to the insurer to request details. They need to discuss figures with the insurance company in case the complaint is upheld. They also need to know information about the policy to see it matches what was recommended.

everreadyrich

Hello money saving expert & all,

I have been missold an endowment, i bought it back in 1990 and spoke to the company recently, who i bought it from. They have accepted it was a missold policy.
It was for 30k, and looks like it would fall short, on it`s maturity in 2015, by at least 6-8k, they have offered compensation of @4.5k.
Should i contact the ombudsman, to look into it or is this offer too good to refuse?
I think it`s a reasonable offer personally, any advice is appreciated, as i spray cars at Toyota & i`m not too good with financial jargon, if i was, i would have become a bank manager!!!!
Do you think this is a reasonable offer?

If i do ask the ombudsman, will this improve the chance of getting a better offer, or will i lose out?

Thanks,
Everreadyrich

dunstonh

Should i contact the ombudsman, to look into it or is this offer too good to refuse?

The calculation is defined and as long as the calculation is correct and the right figures input then the outcome will be correct. Going to the ombudsman will delay the payment to you and if the company withdraw the offer and recalculate it later, the amount you get on recalculation could be less. Especially this time of the year on with profits plans when final bonuses get adjusted (and this year is upwards).

ayrbear1

I wonder if anyone can give me some advice on endowments that are not attached to your mortgage.

I took a policy out through my work nearly nine years ago which I pay £10 pounds a week. I was told it would pay ou £10,000 when it matures. I phoned the company (P.O.I.S) and they said half that figure would be what I get.

Do I have a valid complaint?

dunstonh

ayrbear1 wrote:

I wonder if anyone can give me some advice on endowments that are not attached to your mortgage.

I took a policy out through my work nearly nine years ago which I pay £10 pounds a week. I was told it would pay ou £10,000 when it matures. I phoned the company (P.O.I.S) and they said half that figure would be what I get.

Do I have a valid complaint?

Not unless you have it in writing that you will get £10,000.

It was never going to make £10,000. It would have only made 10k if the whole £5200 you paid in was invested on the first day. I think you would be lucky gettting £5600 on a 1996 plan.

vinno65

dunstonh wrote:

You may have noticed that it only gets mentioned on the companies that have a good enough investment fund to build up a terminal bonus. CIS is an awful with profits fund. It was never a good investment.
.

Hi Dunston, long time no post but i couldn't let this one slide!
Why on earth then did IFA's advise people to invest in the CIS with profits fund??

regards Vinno