Time Barred Endowment - Advice Needing Please??

leona71

I have a case out with Friends Provident regarding our Endowment shortfall, first of all i used the 'which' letter to generate my details of complaint in Feb 2006. Anyway two weeks later i received a letter saying we were time barred. I was quite sure in myself that we were not time barred within the 3 year period as we had never received any letters. So i asked FP to send any letters from our file noting the shortfall in 2002 and 2003, so i received them this morning and both have the wrong address on the letters. They quote my old address, I moved into my current propertly in 2001. This endowment policy is backing up our mortgage.

So what happens now? I have asked for an appeal in the time barr but not sure if this address issue will be a problem or not. We asked the Royal Mail to re direct all our mail in 2001 so not sure if this will be against us as how can they prove anything.

Also the letters we were given in 2002 and 2003 does mention the 'high risk', but it gives no warnings etc, it just doesn't look the same as the letters we were given in 2004 and 2005 which gives Red alert etc etc.

Hope someone can give advice here?

Thanks a lot

Leona

Compensationitis

You should tell FP about their error, they have a regulatory obligation to ensure their records are up to date. If they mess about go straight to the FOS, at the same time lodge a claim online with the Court Service.

If you don't have the time or the inclination there are people who will do this on your behalf without charging an arm and a leg.

leona71

Compensationitis wrote:

You should tell FP about their error, they have a regulatory obligation to ensure their records are up to date. If they mess about go straight to the FOS, at the same time lodge a claim online with the Court Service.

If you don't have the time or the inclination there are people who will do this on your behalf without charging an arm and a leg.

Thanks, i will cross my fingers with this.

I phoned FP today about the error and they are going to put it to the Time Barr appeal team. She told me not to go to the FOS yet and to wait 3/4 weeks for the answer. Mind you i don't have much time left with regards to the 6 months time limit re complaining to the FOS.

Leona

defender_of_the_weak

File it with fos anyway, you can do this by phone and they will send all the forms to you. By doing this you will receive a case number which will be cross referenced to a date within the 6 months

I assume you told FP of your change of address

Please note: they will try anything to weasel out of paying, be careful how you phrase any letters

EdInvestor

I must say I find their behaviour on misselling astonishing, given all the stuff they spout about their Quaker background, commitment to ethical investing etc etc.

Hypocrisy or what? :mad:

They've already copped a whacking fine from the FSA and still they do it.

vinno65

Hi leona, I am not surprised you are having problems with FP they are one of the most complained about companies when it comes to handling complaints, a quick trawl of internet sites will confirm this. Firstly never do anything by phone, anything said to you in a telephone call can be denied. If time is ticking away and they are asking you to wait for 3/4 weeks then the clock should be stopped. Now turning to the time bar. Have they investigated your complaint or have they refused to investigate as they say it is time barred. If it is the latter than they are not allowed to do this. All the time bar rules (as set up by the FSA) do is allow a firm to time bar you taking your complaint to the FOS. FP know this and should investigate your case and then if they so wish can tell you that you are time barred from going to FOS. However you may want to take FP to court. To do this you need an actionable complaint. To have an actionable complaint you need to show that you were miss-sold AND that you have suffered a loss. To show that you were miss-sold AND have suffered a loss FP have to investigate your complaint. I suggest you write to FP complaining again and point out all of the above and let them know you may decide to take them to court so they have to investigate your complaint.
Now coming back to the so called"red letter" (i say so called as as you know they're not red at all!) They say thay sent you letters in 2002 and 2003 notifying you of a shortfall. were the letters titled "update to your endowment plan" as the one I recieved in 2000 was? Did it offer advice such as increasing your premiums or even that you could "wait and see"? Did it even mention the fact that if you did not complain within 3 years that you would be time barred. You'll notice that the later letters do mention time limits. If the letters you recieved in 2002 and 2003 do not mention time bars then it might allow a firm to time bar you taking a complaint to the FOS but not necessarily to court. I recently won a small claims case against FP. I won't go into details but FP tried to have my complaint thrown out of court because of the letter i recieved in August 2000. (this letter as I explained above made no mention of time limits and even stated that i could "wait and see" as regards to my endowment) I pointed this out to the judge and also that these letters had been discussed by the House of Commons Treasury Committee and that the MP's stated that it would be unfair to allow time barring on the basis of them. This is why the FSA changed the rules in June 2004. Firms must now tell of the date at which you will be time barred (this is why you have a later letter from them giving you this date). Also these letters do not show that you have been miss-sold or that you have suffered a loss it is only when they have investigated will you know this. The Judge agreed with me that this letter was not enough in itself to start the time bar clock ticking and i won my case.
Finally even if you have been miss-sold you may not be out of pocket. Pay no attention to potential shortfalls as this is not how redress(not compensation as you do not gain anything)is worked out. Redress is calculated by comparing how much of your mortgage you would have paid off by now (if you had been given a repayment) compared to the surrender value of your endowment. Monthly outgoings are also compared. For example if you would have paid off £15000 by now but your endowment is only worth £12000 then the redress would be £3000. You take this £3000 and the £12000 from the endowment to pay off a lump some of your mortgage. Convert to a repayment and then you should be in the position you would have been had you had a repayment from the outset.
Hope all this makes sense I will be checking in on the board from time to time so feel free to ask any questions
regards Vinno

leona71

Hi
Thanks for your reply Vinno65..
We took our our policy in 1994 and when were consulted about the details etc we were totally taken in by the guy selling the endowment. It was our first time buy, our first mortgage and we basically didn't have a clue about anything other than what the guy was selling us. He said it was definitely the way forward and we would get a lump sum at the mature date. So why were we to question him, we were sold the policy there and then thinking this was great.

Regarding my situation with FP - i wrote a letter to them a few weeks ago now and my reply was that i was time barred and they would not be investigating the matter. They said in their letter that i was quite within my rights to file a complaint with the FOS but in a round about way they said that the FOS will side with FP.

The letters that were delivered to my old address were titled 'update on your mortgage endow plan'. They mention no notes on time barrs and mentions actions you could take: changing mortage loan, savings plan ISA or varying your endowment plan topping up payments etc. The 2004 and 2005 letter mentions the time barrs and High Risk Red Alerts etc. In the 2000 letter i received it says 'wait and see'.

Anyway i phoned up FP yesterday and they said that she was passing my details to the time barr appeal team as i noted that the letters were sent to my last address. We wrote to FP in April 2001 with regards to our change of address, it wasn't changed until 2004 so i guess there was some sort of admin error and i wonder what prompted them to change my address in 2004. Obviously i need to find this out.

Oh what a carry on....i wonder if it will be all worth it really. Our endowment is just over 50k. We're going to surrender the Policy as soon as we find out what's happening re the claim.

Thanks for your help with this.

Leona