Complaint letter advice please.

stormshelterdave

I have been charged a £15 fee for payment protection cover on a credit card I have not used in over a year. I cancelled this policy approx 2-3 years ago.

The credit card company will do nothing and the payment protection people will not refund the £15 to me. They state my only options are a)keep the protection or b)cancel it, but still no refund.

I am rubbish at complaint letters. Any suggestions for what to put in the complaint letter (threats etc)?

JasonW_2

How about along the lines of:

I have been a customer of X for Y years, and am disappointed to see you have charged me £15, for a card I have not used in Z, and cancelled this policy a few years ago.

It is on this matter, that I ask you to refund monies taken for this cover since I asked you to cancel, the sum of 15/30/45/whatever, as I did not give my permission for it to be taken. (make sure you can prove this, a name or letter or whatever you took at the time) If you are unable to do this, then may I ask for a full and meaningful explanation with reasoning, on which I can proceed further with this matter including but not limited to referring this matter to the financial services ombusdman.

I look forward to hearing from you within the next xx days, either by return or by telephone.. blah blah

A quick effort, hope its of some use.

JW

Clariman

stormshelterdave wrote:

I have been charged a £15 fee for payment protection cover on a credit card I have not used in over a year. I cancelled this policy approx 2-3 years ago.

The credit card company will do nothing and the payment protection people will not refund the £15 to me. They state my only options are a)keep the protection or b)cancel it, but still no refund.

I am rubbish at complaint letters. Any suggestions for what to put in the complaint letter (threats etc)?

Hi
I think the first thing you need to do is to make sure you 100% understand what you signed up to, what the cancellation terms were, when you cancelled and whether you have evidence of the cancellation. I say this because there are a couple of things to think about.

Firstly, you say that you cancelled this 2 to 3 years ago. What precisely did you cancel ? Did you cancel the card or did you cancel the PPI ? Don't assume that closing down a card will necessarily end a PPI contract.

If you definitely cancelled the PPI, when did you do so and how did you do it ? Do you have evidence ? Can you prove that you did so ? Even if you have no evidence try to work out when you did so and document that back to them.

You say that you cancelled it 2 to 3 years ago. What happened between then an now ? Did they charge you ? If so, why didn't you query it then ? If they didn't charge you over the last few years, then you could you use that as evidence that the PPI insurance had stopped and ask them why they have suddenly started billing you again.

You say that the credit card company was not helpful regarding this. If they are the PPI insurer then they are responsible. If they are not the PPI insurer then they probably have little or no responsibility. One very important factor that you should be aware of is as follows. PPI insurance is often charged on the basis of a credit card continuous authority. Many people think this is like a direct debit but it isn't. With a direct debit, you can tell your bank not to pay it and they have to stop. However, with a continuous authority, the credit card company can not stop the payment on your behalf. You must get the payee to stop collecting the payments i.e. you have to go directly to the PPI insurer yourself and ensure they stop collecting the money.

I hope this helps. Once you are 100% clear in your own mind about exactly what the situation is, then you can write a letter that spells it out.

Clariman

stormshelterdave

Clariman wrote:

Hi
Firstly, you say that you cancelled this 2 to 3 years ago. What precisely did you cancel ?

I cancelled the PPI shortly after getting the card. The card is still active, just unused.

Clariman wrote:

If you definitely cancelled the PPI, when did you do so and how did you do it ? Do you have evidence ? Can you prove that you did so ?

I canceled by letter, with all relevant instuctions that were given to me over the phone. I have had a look for a copy of the letter and cannot find anything relating to this policy on my computer or filed away

Clariman wrote:

You say that you cancelled it 2 to 3 years ago. What happened between then an now ?

Apparently it is a one-off charge for 3 years cover. This recent charge was a renewal.

Thanks for the advise. I will start on the letter tomorrow.

Rachel85

I always like to start complaint letters with "It is with great regret that I am forced to write to you, however I feel strongly that this matter should be brought to your attention."

regularsaver1

This doesn't sound like ppi to me - this sounds like something that could be called card care / card protection. To protect your cards, passport ect

When I took mine out, this year it was re added at £15 to the credit card - it was in the original conditions that this would be re-debited on renewal. However, i did get new policy documents, and 30 days cancellation period for the new renewal.

It is possible that they did not know that you were not using your card, as the insurer could be different to the card provider.

merch

I agree with rs1, definately sounds like Card protection. Probably from CPP or Sentinel

https://www.cpp.co.uk

https://www.sentinelcardprotection.com

This has to be cancelled with the card protection company, not the credit card company. If policy has been paid with a Continuous Payment Authority then it can be more tricky than cancelling a direct debit... But that's another thread...