Report Endowment Misselling Compensation SUCCESSES

mayb_2

Everything crossed Crazy Saver - you have waited so long and worked so hard that it is impossible to believe it wont work out for you in the end. Here's praying that is the case. What will you do with all that spare time?? I still have all my paperwork and wonder when I will finally feel able to shred it all.

nomorekids

Has anyone at all got anytihing out of Friends Provident. I took my case to the Financial Ombudsman following what I believed to be bullying into taking out an endowment as staff inorder to receive their mortgage subsidy. I am now facing over £24,000 shortfall. The Financial Ombudsman upheld their side and their defence that I was timed out even though they admitted misselling my endowment.

Andrew4444

I was advised to take out a top-up policy for £10K by my lender (Bradford and Bingley). The policty is with the Pru. Who do you send the letter of complaint to: The lender (Bradford and Bingley) who advised me to take out the £10K policy of the provider (Pru) who sold it to me??

LISAWICK

Had endowment for 10 years with Phoenix (formerly Cornhill). Made one call to the company and told them that the adviser had said he had never known a policy not to pay off a mortgage - they sent me forms - I returned them and 5 days later they have now offered me £3309.72 (10 minutes work was never as profitable!) which I intend to take.:j






Started doing comps last week and won 2 tickets to Goodwood festival of speed!! :j

troutangler

[EMAIL="tnydooley@yahoo.co.uk"]tnydooley@yahoo.co.uk[/EMAIL] Finally after eight years my complaint has been upheld and my offer of compensation is £13,613.73 which I have accepted.

In 2001 I complained to Century Life that their agent mis-sold me a mortgage endowment policy. When the complaint was investigated the agent claimed that he never told me that the policy would produce sufficient funds to pay off the mortgage early after 17 years or get a cash free lump sum at 20 years. My complaint was not upheld.

Over the years I wrote asking the firm to look into my complaint again but the firm refused stating that I had no new evidence and that they were standing by the original decision.

Century Life were taken over by Phoenix Life who incidentally have taken over lots of similar firms.

In January this year I decided to tackle the firm again. I looked at the Financial Service Authority website and came across two FSA publications which had been published after I had received my decision.

In the FSA report "Mortgage Endowments Delivering Higher Standards" the report states that over 100,000 previously rejected complaints have been (or are being) reviewed and so far around about 75% of the cases reviewed have been decided in the consumer's favour.

John Tiner (the then Chief Executive of the FSA) issued a letter on "Consumer Complaints about Mis-selling of Mortgage Endowments" to all firms involved with selling products of this nature. This letter included several key points which must be given due consideration before a firm can turn down a complaint.

I examined the original decision against these key points and found that the firm had ignored eight of the key points in reaching their decision. I wrote to Phoenix Life and demanded that my complaint be reviewed and that the guidelines handed down by John Tiner be fully taken into consideration when looking at my complaint. Phoenix Life refused to review the complaint.

I immediately wrote back to the firm and demanded that they provided me with full disclosure about: the total number of complaints made to Phoenix Life about mortgage endowment policies, the number of complaints the firm had turned down and the number of complaints which were taken to the Financial Ombudsman and were upheld in favour of the consumer. I also informed the company that once I had this information I would immediately raise court action against them.

In addition to this I wrote a letter to Hector Sants Chief Executive of the FSA and informed him that Phoenix Life warranted a full investigation getting carried out because the firm is failing to comply with the FSA guidelines and regulations.

Without a shadow of doubt there is a definate need for the FSA Retail Firm Division to examine the complaints handling procedures of Phoenix Life because there are many issues, which the Enforcement Division would be interested in. I enclosed a copy of this to Phoenix when I wrote to them

I received an email from the FSA stating that any action arising from my letter or any other additional material I provided would be used internally and I would be kept in the dark about any developments arising.

Within a week I received a reply from Phoenix stating that my complaint would be looked at again. Three weeks after that the firm informed me that my complaint was upheld and I was given an offer of compensation of £13,613.73 which I have accepted.

I emailed the FSA to inform them of the outcome and I have asked the FSA to order Phoenix Life to carry out reviews on all complaints which were refused.

My case is a classic example that their complaints handling is detrimental to the consumer and I believe that I am only one of thousands that this firm has treated unfairly.

If I can be of any assistance to anybody dealing with Phoenix Life then please feel free to contact me, either by the forum or by email.

My mortgage is due to be paid in October next year and this compensation will maybe leave me with a shortfall of around £2,000.00 which is manageable.

However I am aware that class actions cases are coming to the UK and if any arise in relation to action being taken against firm in relation to their extremely high charges or poor investment performances then I shall be signing up immediately to seek futher compensation.

troutangler

thelicencee wrote: »

Hi,
I am no good at these things, dont even know if I am on the right, link, although I know I am the page for missold endowments.
We contacted the company, who completely denied we were missold or misadvised, yet told ou there is to be a 25k shortfall on a 60k endowment. They said they would investigate, but still came back with a negative response. We were asked to continue to still send in any further details of the missold policy and they would' re-evaluate' there decision and if they felt we were missold they would notify us.After about 4-5 months of one way traffic from us, we decided to contact the ombudsman. But when they contacted the company they told the ombudsman we were 'out of time' and the ombudsman advised that the company had refused to make any information available to them. We are now stuck between a rock and a hard place, with no where to go. Does anybody have any information that may help us progress this matter towards a positive outcome?
Many thanks in advance
Paul

Hi

Check out my post number 536 if you are not timed barred. This approach will bring dividends.

Good luck

Troutangler

DODGE47

help . how do i post a message, i want to ask an opinion on having a shortfall on my endowment

DODGE47

Hi, first time on forum. I took out endowment policy 9-11-88 with National Mutual Life, via my accountant (now deceased) a with profits policy for 25 years to cover a mortgage of £34,000. at cost of £44.18 per month. It seemed to be doing ok, with decent annual bonus's up until it was taken over or (renamed GE Pensions ltd- same address) in 2001. policy had a surrender value of £16182.30. The company was renamed in 2006 as TOMORROW, slightly different address but exactly the same postcode! then renamed again as WINDSOR LIFE inDec.2007.

Fed up with being passed around, (although all their corespondance assuring me they are looking after my best interest and nothing had changed from the original policy). I decided to ask for a surrender value....it was now 10/12/08 ..£16534.35. ..... they had earned me £352.05. IN 7 YEARS?

I feel I have been cheated on the possable bonus's I should have got. The answer they gave was the company had not done well over the lasty 7 years.... although my nephew printed off a graph showing how well they had prospered!

Do I have any rights to the share of profits? Should I have recieved 5%-7% minimum return they had predicted? Surely they must have earned more than 0.3% per year they are paying me?

Please could anyone tell me what I can do? HOPEFULLY!

dunstonh

I feel I have been cheated on the possable bonus's I should have got. The answer they gave was the company had not done well over the lasty 7 years.... although my nephew printed off a graph showing how well they had prospered!

2000-2002 you had a range of issues that resulted in a significant stockmarket crash (dot.com being the main one) then you recently have the credit crunch and solvency concerns that has seen another significant drop.

Do I have any rights to the share of profits?

What profits?

Should I have recieved 5%-7% minimum return they had predicted?

There is no such predictions issued.

Surely they must have earned more than 0.3% per year they are paying me?

FTSE is currently lower than what it was in 1998. Given the way the fund you are likely to be in is currently funded and the losses it has incurred, its unlikely to see any real return to bonuses of any significant amount for the foreseeable future.

DODGE47

dunstonh wrote: »

2000-2002 you had a range of issues that resulted in a significant stockmarket crash (dot.com being the main one) then you recently have the credit crunch and solvency concerns that has seen another significant drop.



What profits?

In a quote from the Windsor Life website, National Mutual With profit fund recieved a £15.7m bonus as compensation for the removal of these policies. Also the company boasts how well it has done in recent years. The company say they pay a final bonus on the full termination of the policy. Do you think i would be advised to continue with this policy or terminate it now and invest somewhere else?

There is no such predictions issued.



FTSE is currently lower than what it was in 1998. Given the way the fund you are likely to be in is currently funded and the losses it has incurred, its unlikely to see any real return to bonuses of any significant amount for the foreseeable future.

In a quote from the Windsor Life website, National Mutual With profit fund recieved a £15.7m bonus as compensation for the removal of these policies. Also the company boasts how well it has done in recent years. The company say they pay a final bonus on the full termination of the policy. Do you think i would be advised to continue with this policy or terminate it now and invest somewhere else?