Vanquis Repayment Option Plan - Is this PPI or not?

climbintheladderouttadebt

I've been paying RPO on my Vanquis card until I cancelled it on 5 March 2010 as my account had gone to a DCA.

Now, on Vanquis' website, they state:
Repayment option plan terms and conditions

General

• 1. "We”, “us”, “our” means Vanquis Bank Limited whose registered office is at Colonnade, Sunbridge Road, Bradford, West Yorkshire BD1 2LQ.
• 2. “You”, “yourself”, “your” means you, the existing Vanquis credit card account (“Account”) customer.
• 3. The Repayment Option Plan (“the Plan”) is not a regulated insurance product and will not pay off any capital or interest on your Account.
• 4. We do not provide advice or a recommendation on whether the Plan is suitable for your purposes.
• 5. We have given a particular meaning to the words which begin with a capital letter. These meanings are explained in this agreement.
• 6. The Plan is provided to you as a monthly contract and is renewed each month unless terminated in accordance with paragraphs 24 to 27.
• 7. Telephone calls may be monitored and all calls will be recorded for the purposes of quality control, confirmation of the accurate execution of transactions, resolution of disputes, training and/or fraud prevention.
• 8. This agreement is governed by English law and all contractual terms and conditions and information supplied in this agreement are supplied in English. We will communicate with you in English.

Now, it's #3 that gets me - they state it is not PPI - if it's not, what is it? It then goes on to state that you can 'activate' the plan under 'difficult financial circumstances', all of which is very misleading!

di3004

Hi there

The Financial ombudsman service (FOS) will be able to tell you, but if you do not have the policy booklet for this, they should be able to provide this free, if not maybe there is some info on their website.

If it covers for sickness/unemployment etc etc, it is possibly the same but maybe just named differently.;)

climbintheladderouttadebt

Thanks, Di. Will contact FOS and Vanquis to ask some questions then. Having thought about it some more, it would seem that it si some kind of PPI, with some different criteria etc. I know I asked for PPI, I always do out of fear of things going wrong, even if it won't cover me! (The card was taken out in 2009 on the Internet so won't look into PPI mis-selling)

Alex_Thomas

Hi, sorry to disappoint, but I have just spoken to the FOS and they said that the Vanquis Repayment Option plan is not PPI.

The chap did say however, that if you have been mis-sold it then you may still be able to reclaim money - it's just that PPI is the big thing.

I have looked at the details they sent me, and there are a load of issues.

It says you have to request it - I did not (I think).
It says that I am female - I am not (I think).
It says that I am married - I am not (I think)
And they have provided a salary that does not match what I was earning at the time they say I applied.

I think I applied 2.5-3 years before that, so I am going to challenge them. If they have everything else wrong, then hopefully I can show that I was not properly advised, and should get my money back.

They really are t*s*e*s though Vanquis. I have recommended to people to poke their own eyes out rather than ever consider using them.