My Parents V Barclays Endownment mis-selling-Please help?

buel

Hi,
I have recently been chatting to my mum who said that she has recently has the Ombudsman rule against her claim that she was mis-sold three Endownment policies by a salesman from Barclays in 1998. he left Barclays soon afterwards.
Basically there were three endownment policies that are due to finish in 2013, my parents were assured that there was no risk that the policies would definitely reach their targets of £16,000, £3000 and £2000. My parents are given yearly statements of how the endownments are looking and unfortunately this years statement showed that the endownments were due to make £8000, £1000 and £800 so there stands to be a shortfall of £11000!!

Please can anyone tell me is there any other avenue to appeal/argue the case?
Ps- Rather annoyingly, the life insurance on one of the monthly payments is nearly taking up to 50% of the amount my parents pay every month, for example:
On the £16000 endownment the monthly payment is £27.48 of which £14 is Life Insurance.
On the £3000 endownment the monthly payment is £12 of which £2.80 is Life Insurance.
On the £2000 endownment the monthly payment is £5.42 of which £2.75 is Life Insurance.

dunstonh

Please can anyone tell me is there any other avenue to appeal/argue the case?

To have the case ruled on by an ombudsman, your mum must have already appealed the intial decision by an adjudicator. So, to get to that stage, she has had a rejection from Barclays, a rejection by the FOS adjudicator and now a rejection by the FOS ombudsman. its the end of the road as far as the financial service complaints process goes. Her only option now is to go through the courts.

The problem with going through the courts is that the FOS and courts generally follow the same process. However, the FOS is more consumer friendly than the courts would be. i.e. the FOS consider fairness whereas the courts consider law. Also, the FOS disregard certain documents in a complaint but the courts do not. So, the big warning message on the illustration provided at point of sale and with the cancellation rights and again in the risk warnings on the key features that says something along the lines of "you could get back more or less than the figures shown". "you can get back less than you pay in" etc, would be considered by the court.

Most court cases fail on endowments and the providers do fight them when they are raised. So, what evidence does your mum have to support her accusation of mis-sale that would make the court believe her?

Ps- Rather annoyingly, the life insurance on one of the monthly payments is nearly taking up to 50% of the amount my parents pay every month, for example:

That is irrelevant. The premium for the endowment is priced on the cost of the life assurance and hitting the target figure assuming a growth rate of x% p.a. is achieved net of charges. The cost of life cover has no impact on the ability of an endowment to hit target or not.

Statistically, a 1998 case is less likely to fail than a 1989 case. By 1998, the warnings and processes were much better ensuring that risks were disclosed and that cost comparisons were made with repayment mortgages etc. An earlier case is likely to be written to a lower standard of documentation and in most cases that redress was paid, some or all of the file was missing.

EdInvestor

Are these unit linked endowments? If so, how are they doing now?