Act now on mis-sold endowments: new article

vinno65

Hi Crazysaver,
Have you ever read John Tiner's letter to the heads of the insurance companies.I think it was sent in about 2002. One of the points in it particular to your case is that the fact that you may already have had endowments does not mean that any subsequent sales of endowments to you were therefore not miss-sold.
The FOS now seem to be saying the complete oposite! The adjudicator in your case is assuming that because you already had endowments then you must know exactly how they work and the risks inherent in them. This is a massive assumption.
I can only suggest you do not give up now. You can request that the case is forwarded to an ombudsman and I believe you can also ask for a personal hearing though I am not sure if these are always granted. But it might be better presenting you case in person.

regards Vinno

defender_of_the_weak

Clearly your adjudicator has adopted an entrenched position and is not willing to move. They dont like the term but without doubt some of them are biased based on previous employment history working for big providers. The negligible saving on the monthly premium needs to be balanced against the loss on the surrender value. Clearly your adjudicator lacks knowledge and does not appear to grasp this one.

Since the turn of the year we have seen a lot more adjudicator rejections based on 'the balance of probabilities' in favour of the advisers

Crazy_Saver

defender_of_the_weak wrote: »

Clearly your adjudicator has adopted an entrenched position and is not willing to move. They dont like the term but without doubt some of them are biased based on previous employment history working for big providers. The negligible saving on the monthly premium needs to be balanced against the loss on the surrender value. Clearly your adjudicator lacks knowledge and does not appear to grasp this one.

Since the turn of the year we have seen a lot more adjudicator rejections based on 'the balance of probabilities' in favour of the advisers

Hi DOTW.

Thanks for your help. Do I just reply to the FOS saying that I would like to have the case referred , or should I attach a copy of my last post as well?

Completely irrelevent I know, but did you really reply at 5.39am:eek:

Don't you ever sleep!

Am I dreaming or has the time on your post changed since luchtime?????BST must have kicked in sometime this afternoon!

defender_of_the_weak

Crazy saver

I would keep the initial response fairly short just stating that you do not believe the matter has been fairly assessed and want the case to be put forward for consideration by an Ombudsman.

The file will be subsequently reviewed before an Ombudsman gets it (and this stage of the process could take 2 years) and then you should spell out the discrepancies one by one. I accept that the new endowment was cheaper, but were they comparing exactly like for like and was consideration given to the loss caused by the recommendation for early surrender.

Crazy_Saver

asaengrit wrote: »

http://www.getwisely.com/sold_endowments-main.html

Thanks for that.

I'm not sure it is exactly what I need as it appears to be mainly companies offering to take on my case for a commission. I really would like to sort this problem out on my own if I can.

Regards

Crazy Saver

dunstonh

asaengrit reported for more spams. That link is referrals site.

Crazy_Saver

dunstonh wrote: »

asaengrit reported for more spams. That link is referrals site.

Cheers for that dunstonh.

Dozy me, still as gullible and trusting as ever:o

mayb_2

Crazy Saver when we received out rejection letter from the adjudicator he referred to other endowments we possessed giving us experience of endowments and how they worked. He said we would not have bought a policy without having all of the paperwork and we would have known that the company should have kept us informed of its performance based on our previous experience of these things. We only had a mortgage endowment policy at the time we purchased this savings plan (with profits policy). We had purchased this just two years previously and had already successfully claimed for this and the company concerned had agreed it had been missold to us. The Ombudsman just reiterated the findings of the adjudicator when he looked at our case on appeal against the adjudicators decision.

The reason that I mention this is that we asked for all of the paperwork to be sent to us following the final decision as we wanted to take this to court. The Ombudsman sent paperwork supplied to them by the CIS which we had not seen until this time. The CIS had entered several policy numbers on to a document which purported to be policies we had with the CIS at the time we purchaed the savings plan. We phoned up the company help desk to trace these policies. Two were insurances for £1 per month that we had for our sons. One was a life insurance of £1 per month for me. One turned out to be a forgotten frozen pension plan for my husband which should have started paying out two years before and for which we had never received any paperwork. The company claimed this had not been put on their system when they computerised it. The other they admited did not exist and then claimed must have been a reference to a policy we had with another company!!

The point I am making being that the Ombudsman partly based his decision on false information we were unaware of. There were also other anomalies in the papework provided by the CIS - alterations to our disposable income and such. There was incorrect information on the fact find too and the Ombudsman chose to put his own interpretation on this. This would have painted a picture very different to the true one without our being able to refute it - we didn't know it existed until later.

This does not excuse the bias of the Ombudsman as we refuted his assumption that we had previous experience but he chose not to believe us and rejected our appeal. Vinno has a point in his post about this which might be worth referring to in your letter.

Do you think it worth your while asking for copies of the paperwork sent to the Ombudsman - just in case there is something in there you may wish to refer to or refute - before you write your letter? Have you seen the Fact Find for instance?

I would follow DOTWs advice anyway - I do so wish I had found this site before I made my complaint. Our policy was definately churned but we did not know that word or what it meant and probably wrote our complaint the wrong way to start with. We thought honesty was the best policy and just explained what had happened, believing that we could not fail to make a case once the Ombudsman knew what had happened - it never entered our heads that the company would change the facts in this way. How naieve was that!! Ours was not a mortgage claim anyway and probably more difficult to have upheld than yours.

Keep going and I do hope it comes right in the end.

Crazy_Saver

Hi mayb.

We also have had concerns regarding "dodgy" documents and records.

I am convinced that our advisor took our signatures from one document, laid them over another one and then photocopied it to use as evidence!

Here is the thread that covers most of it.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=278351

By the way, considering that so many people gave me advice regarding this, I thought everyone else would like to read the FOS adjudicator's comments.


You have drawn my attention to a document that you feel might have been altered in some way. While it is possible that the document has been 'cobbled' together there is nothing to suggest this was done after the record was made. The advisor's writing flows over the border lines, which suggests that the document was an inferior copy of an original, rather than an original, at the time it was completed and the font is the same as the rest of the document. I appreciate that it's hard for the people on the forum to make a judgement without seeing the document, but believe me, the fact that the advisor's writing overlaps the side boarders bears no relevance to the bottom third of the document. Also, the paper on the bottom third is wider than the top two thirds. And, why on earth he says that the fonts are the same, the bottom third(the part that appears to be overlaid) is typed and the top is hand written. There are no fonts to compare!

I note that the signatures are dated 4 October 1990. The record was made at the first meeting, and updated in May 1991, a few months later, when you found a property and were ready to go ahead. It was common practice within the industry to 'update' fact finds in this way with any significant changes. Signatures on a fact find were not a requirement. There is insufficient evidence for me to be able to conclude that the signatures have been 'overlaid' and, in any case, I have no reason to doubt that the recorded information does not reflect your circumstances at the time.I understand that fact finds were updated, but if as he says "signatures were not a requirement" why do 'dated' signatures from 1990 appear on a document dated 1991?
If there is insufficient evidence to conclude that the signatures have been overlaid, because, as he says, it is an inferior copy, why didn't he ask to see the original document?
I also think it quite a coincidence that this is the document where the advisor has written the OH SO IMPORTANT WORDS.........."Explained basic principal that the life cover is guaranteed to repay the loan on 1st death but the overall return would depend on investment returns. Happy to accept this risk. "

Maybe I'm being paranoid, but could this possibly be the reason why our signatures have miraculously appeared on the document. And, 7 months before parts of it were even written!

I know I must sound bitter but I'm not.

It's not that any more. I really have moved on and I'm in the process of sorting out my endowment. In fact, it's not even the redress money so much as I know that that will never go anywhere near covering the shortfall.

I just don't think it is right that the FA in question should come out of this unscathed and without any repercussions at all. After all, it's quite possible that she could still be mis-advising people.

Crazy Saver.

mayb_2

Crazy Saver I so agree with that. I don't think those posters who consistently point to convenient memory understand the depths that these companies/people will plumb to cover their tracks or the lengths the FOS and FSA will go to protect them. We had all sorts of cobbled together documents given to the FOS to prove that we had received information warning us about the possibilities of not performing - when we pointed this out (they talked about completley different products from the one we had purchased) and asked for the originals - the FOS just said that even though the company had not managed to produce the actual documents he was satisfied that we would have received them based on his own experience of such sales etc. We were in a completely lose lose situation. Some Lord something or other did raise concerns in the House about the Ombudsman Service - my husband heard it on the radio- I could find nothing about it on the news and it appears to have died a death.

These people are a rule unto themselves and unless someone like Martin Lewis decides to tackle them I expect they will go unchallenged - the whole process will die out soon with the imposition of the time bar and be quietly swept under the carpet as inconvenient history where it will sit alongside our convenient memories I expect. Must admit you are not getting much response from the usual suspects to your posts Crazy Saver - where do you think they have all gone?