Is it too late?

calgacus_2

Hi Everyone

Apologies if this has been discussed already, but I have spent a few hours looking at existing threads/advice and can't see my situation described.

Briefly, I took out an unsecured loan in 2005 with the Halifax to buy a car, it was for £7000 repayable over 7 years at approx £120 per month. I was very financially naiive at the time (still am) but was told nothing about PPI etc. just signed lots of forms without really reading them (I know...)

In late 2007 I heard about the PPI scam and wondered if my loan included this so got in touch with Halifax to find out. I was informed that I did indeed have PPI on my loan, can't remember the exact figure but it was a significant proportion of the monthly repayment, around £40 I think.

I told them that I didn't want the PPI anymore and would like to cancel it and was put through to someone else. This person informed me that it was impossible to cancel PPI, the only way to get rid of it was to take out another loan without PPI to repay the original one. This person was a very good salesman, they persuaded me to borrow some extra money as well (I know...)

Anyway, the upshot was that after 2 years of repayments it seemed I still owed them nearly £7000 (I realise that this included an early repayment charge, but 2 years of repayments for nothing!)

So now I don't have PPI but my question is: is it too late to reclaim anything on the first loan which did have PPI but is now paid off? I feel like a fool, but I also feel like they really took advantage of my naiivety. Unfortunately, I don't have any paperwork from the original loan - it was mostly done online.

Many thanks in advance and maximum respect to Martin and all the other contributors

Stewart

marshallka

I would request a SAR first and get your proof that someone told you you could not cancel the PPI (which is untrue as you can cancel but it does mean taking out another loan and you only get a small proportion of the actual PPI premium back and not the interest charged on it!!). If you then make the complaint you can make it with solid evidence of being misinformed on this.

As regards the PPI and misselling it in the first place I doubt that not reading the forms would constitute a missale TBH but if you have other reasons then perhaps you can try.

di3004

calgacus wrote: »

Hi Everyone

Apologies if this has been discussed already, but I have spent a few hours looking at existing threads/advice and can't see my situation described.

Briefly, I took out an unsecured loan in 2005 with the Halifax to buy a car, it was for £7000 repayable over 7 years at approx £120 per month. I was very financially naiive at the time (still am) but was told nothing about PPI etc. just signed lots of forms without really reading them (I know...)

In late 2007 I heard about the PPI scam and wondered if my loan included this so got in touch with Halifax to find out. I was informed that I did indeed have PPI on my loan, can't remember the exact figure but it was a significant proportion of the monthly repayment, around £40 I think.

I told them that I didn't want the PPI anymore and would like to cancel it and was put through to someone else. This person informed me that it was impossible to cancel PPI, the only way to get rid of it was to take out another loan without PPI to repay the original one. This person was a very good salesman, they persuaded me to borrow some extra money as well (I know...)

Anyway, the upshot was that after 2 years of repayments it seemed I still owed them nearly £7000 (I realise that this included an early repayment charge, but 2 years of repayments for nothing!)

So now I don't have PPI but my question is: is it too late to reclaim anything on the first loan which did have PPI but is now paid off? I feel like a fool, but I also feel like they really took advantage of my naiivety. Unfortunately, I don't have any paperwork from the original loan - it was mostly done online.

Many thanks in advance and maximum respect to Martin and all the other contributors

Stewart

Hi Stewart and welcome

If that was only done verbally, then I would do this in writing to make a reclaim, because you have to have a final decision, where then you would have 6 months from the final date to make a complaint to the Financial ombudman service (FOS).

I take it you did not receive any written correspondence with a final decision?

If not then what you do is complete the questionnaire to make a reclaim to them, this is now used instead of the first reclaiming template letter on this site.
Keep a copy in case you need to refer to it later on.
They have 8 weeks to give a decision, but they may ask for more time and give a date of when you should expect to hear.

You will find this questionnaire here - as stage one of reclaiming.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/ppi-loan-insurance#reclaim


Good luck, please keep us posted and ask for help if required.

Di

calgacus_2

Thanks for the advice, but don't know what a SAR is...

calgacus_2

Thanks Di, no, I haven't sent any letters yet, only heard about this site recently and needed some advice before I embarked on this. Will complete questionnaire today

di3004

calgacus wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, but don't know what a SAR is...

As Marshallka says, I also think this would be a wise thing to do too.;)

di3004

calgacus wrote: »

Thanks Di, no, I haven't sent any letters yet, only heard about this site recently and needed some advice before I embarked on this. Will complete questionnaire today

Arh right, so at least now then you can actually follow the procedures on here and keep all in writing, you then have something to show the FOS if you go that far.