Scottish Widows Demutualisation Payouts: £70 million still unclaimed!

WendyDixon

Just got a letter from SW saying they sent me a cheque on 21st August 2000 for £7878.05! Now I would have remembered that, it's a lot of money!

Rang them and they said they do not have records of where the cheque was sent, or where the money went (too long ago). I would have paid it into the Halifax savings account if I'd had it so I'm checking with them right now!

There's too many of us on here for it to be case of mass-amnesia! But what can we do next? Call the Police en-mass, and claim theft or fraud?

Surely the onus is on SW to show that we definately did cash the cheque, and into which bank account it went?

Here's hoping . . . :mad:

steelydan

This is now reaching epidemic proportions and yet still no posts regarding a satisfactory response from any of the authorities or consumer programmes.
I see on Watchdog this site founder has taken up his cudgel in defence of rail travellers. Perhaps his unbridled enthusiasm could now turn to this unheeded farce ?

ahigh5

Its funny that you mentioned fraud. I just remembered when I was speaking to the lady at SW & told her I did not receive the so called cheque, she said perhaps its a matter of fraud then. I took it to mean that perhaps someone else got their hands on it & cashed it but now I wonder if she was hinting at something else......

kiltyboy

ahigh5 wrote: »

Its funny that you mentioned fraud. I just remembered when I was speaking to the lady at SW & told her I did not receive the so called cheque, she said perhaps its a matter of fraud then. I took it to mean that perhaps someone else got their hands on it & cashed it but now I wonder if she was hinting at something else......

Having worked on this kind of stuff before I always find direct questioning the best approach. Part of the problem is reading too much into things. If you think she was hinting at something else what is it she was hinting at? If Wids didn't give you the answer you wanted ask them directly & pin them down. If you take issues to outside agencies like the ombudmans they only want to deal with fact not speculation.

munchkinsgran

Received a reply from Ombudsman a couple of days ago. He infromed me "We are currently receiving very high volumes of enquiries" Not sure if this refers to SW or just generally. I anticipate a full response in the not too distant future.
Hope this spurs them on to investigate SW/Lloyds TSB soon.

beeker170572

I have now recevied a response from "The Pensions Advisory Service" after my Fo complaint was forwarded onto them. Bit dissapointed really as they advise me to contact the SW banking section instead of the Admin section to question whether they can give me any info on which bank account the cheques was cashed into.

But i have been there, done that and all i get from SW is that they cannot give me that info as they dont have it.

So nothing really happening in my situation and looks like SW will get away with it because nobody can conclusively prove that they did not cash a cheque into any bank account they have ever had.

tns_2

I am new to this forum, but I am also another victim of this farce, Received letter from SW saying I was sent a cheque for £4306.10 on yes you are right 21.8.2000 Never received any such cheque as for this amount of money I would have been singing from the roof tops.
Also even though I cashed my policy in in 2006 I have kept every piece of correspondence from SW since the policy was taken out. I have a letter dated Jan 2000 explaining that endownments my not pay out enough to repay mortgages I then have a letter dated August 2000 referring back to this letter in January, yet I have absolutely nothing even mentioning and demutualisation or any cheque. Now is that not a little strange
What do we do from here ? they seem to hold all the trump cards !!!

PollyJo_2

Thanks for letting me know about the payment from SW. Unfortunately I wish I didn't know! Heres the background story. I took out a SW endowment policy (with bonus) for £30k in 1991 with my then husband. We separated in 1995 and I continued paying the endowment myself. In 2000 I contacted SW to inform them I have bought out my ex's share of the house and continued paying the endowment. I was informed by SW that, because of the time left on the endowment, his name could not be taken off the policy. When I applied for the payout I was informed by letter that my ex had received the payment in August 2002 as he was first name on the policy. To add insult to injury, the endowment ends early 2011 with a shortfall of £10k!!! Where is the justice in that. SW wouldn't tell me how much was paid out either!

ahigh5

Has anyone seen the Happy warrior site on SW and this whole issue? My goodness it sounds muckier than I thought!

k9love

Ive sent our complaint to the ombudsman but no reply as yet, we couldnt get statements from our banks because they only go back 6 yrs, just hope that now people are complaining that we all get something done about this obvious fraud!