Do I need a SAR?

iwantahome

Hello,

I sent off to HFC bank requesting a SAR a few weeks ago, however the Post Office STILL has my letter. It is being progressed through their system, and it is extremely frustrating as I paid extra to have it posted, yet it appears to be lost or sitting in one of their offices waiting for someone from HFC to go and collect it. I suspect that nobody from the bank will ever go to a post office to collect their mail. so.....

I am now considering sending off the questionnaire from this site to reclaim my mis-sold PPI on a loan I took out in 2005. I took out a loan to cover another loan I had with HFC/beneficial finance/household bank (too many names for one bank!!!) and to consolidate some debt. The problem lies in the fact that I have no paperwork for the loan. I have the account number as it is on the direct debit on some of my bank statements from the time. I cannot remember the exact date the loan was taken but I do have my bank statement showing when the first direct debit was taken so I assume it was taken out roughly a month or two beforehand.

As I have no paperwork for the loan and my bank statements only go back as far as the first DD payment, they do not go back to the actual loan payment going in, I do not remember exactly how much the loan was far. £4000 seems to ring a bell but I cannot be certain.

I was told at the time that I must take out PPI on my loan otherwise I would not be accepted for the loan due to being a student at the time. I have since found out that this was not true, that I did not need the PPI to be given the loan, and that as a student I would not be eligible to claim had I lost my part time job as I would not technically be classed as unemployed as I would always be classed as a student and I would not have been entitled to any unemployment benefits therefore would not be unemployed.

I requested in 2007 to have the PPI removed from my loan but was told that I must take out another loan with HFC to be allowed to have the PPI removed. Thankfully I did not take them up on this and I took out a graduate loan at a much better rate with barclays instead and cleared the HFC loan in 2007. I actually had to pay approximately £5600 to clear the loan despite making payments of £175 per month for 20 months. At the time I just wanted to be free of HFC bank forever (hence no paperwork).

What I want to know is do I need to have the paperwork to reclaim my PPI? Should I wait until my SAR letter is redirected back to myself and send it again? Or should I send the questionnaire without waiting for the SAR? I requested the SAR as I do not have any figures for the loan other than the monthly payment and the amount I had to pay to clear it (I have the cheque stub and the cheque used to clear the loan is on a bank statement).

I am fortunate enough to be debt free now, however I feel that this PPI money I rightfully mine and that it contributed unnecessarily to some of my debt due to the greed of the bank when setting up my loan. And that no mater how small or large the amount is I want it back.

Hopefully someone on here will be able to advise me. I will have many more questions so I apologise in advance for sounding naive, asking the same thing many times over, and generally being a pest.


iwantahome
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iwantahome

sorry for the long post above, but this has been playing on my mind for the past few weeks. I cannot continue checking the post office website every single day and need to progress this on.

Premier_2

Do you mean you sent your letter using a signed for service?

Royal Mail should return the item to you if it is not delivered/collected by the intended recipient. It may take up to 15 working days.

What exactly did you request in the SAR? Do you need that information? Perhaps you already have it? Maybe they've saved you a tenner if they fail to collect the letter :beer:

Edit: Be aware that sometimes RM do not update their online system for whatever reason. If it says the letter is still awaiting delivery, it could simply be it has been delivered but they haven't updated the system.
It would normally say awaiting collection if that were the case, or being returned to sender, etc.
I would make a claim against RM if the staus doesn't change after 15 working days.

iwantahome

Thanks premier,

I sent the letter using recorded signed for first class delivery. I thought that Royal Mail would update their website for their track and trace service as soon as the letter was signed for, or as soon as the hand held unit that was signed upon was returned to the office and plugged in again to charge, was I being naive in expecting them to act like a professional business?

I currently says "Item ************* was posted at ******************* on 31/01/11 and is being progressed through our network for delivery." Therefore 15 working days is still a long way off. (Do saturdays count as working days seeing as RM deliver on a saturday?) I did place my house number and postcode on the back of the letter for return if not delivered. I guess I am just frustrated as this is a stumbling block that I do not need.

With the SAR I requested every document that they had in any file that referenced me, on any system, either current or archived. I am not sure if I need the information to make a claim. I guess what i'm asking here is will HFC deny all knowledge of my account and leave it to me to prove that I took out a loan with them? Or will they acknowledge that I did indeed have a loan with them and that I did take out PPI on that loan after being told that I must take it as a condition of acceptance.

After reading another post on here I sent off a letter from a template on this site, with a cheque for £10, a photocopy of my passport, and a list of every address i've held for the past 5 year as someone on this site stated that HFC requesting this was usually a stalling tactic to attempt to refuse access to your data.

I have no documents for the loan as when I moved house a while back a lot was destroyed. I have hunted high and low and the documents are definitely not in my possession.

Premier_2

Your letter has probably been delivered. If the status doesn't change after 15 working days, claim from RM and you should get 6 first class stamps compo.
It's quite common not to get a signature using recorded delivery - if you check out the ebay board some people say they are lucky to get one 50% of the time. I usually find about an 80% success chance.

If HFC deny you ever having an account with them, find all the payments you've ever made to them (you should be able to do this through your own bank) and recover them all as they were obviously made in error :beer:

iwantahome

Thanks premier,

hopefully you have stopped me from going crazy. I shall claim the 6 stamps from RM even if just as compo for the ridiculous and unnecessary frustration this has caused. I have never had this before, every time I have sent a letter this way I have had it confirmed on their website.

Shall I give HFC the 40 days to gather my information together and give me my SAR? or shall I just fill out the form and post the reclaim off to them?

Premier_2

If you don't need the information you requested to complete the claim, I would suggest starting the claim now. The sooner you start, the sooner you will get a result.

iwantahome

Thanks premier,

I have printed out the questionnaire today and plan to fill it out tonight and post it off. Hopefully things can be sorted out as quickly as possible. I will post updates on here, if and when there are any.

iwantahome

Well....

I waited and waited and waited and still my letter is "being progressed through our system" with royal mail.

So one phone call to HFC bank to ask for the complaints address so that I can send my forms off without the SAR and I chanced my arm with giving my account details. The lady on the end of the phone was very helpful and my details were still logged on the system. My original loan was for £5000 with £2005.60 front loaded onto the loan for PPI :mad::mad:

I told the woman about my problem of being missold and that I was told I was not going to be accepted unless I took out the PPI, and that I was a student at the time so even losing my part time job would mean I was not technically unemployed so would not have been able to claim anyway (which they were fully aware of at the time). And she was able to give me some further details such as dates etc.

The loan was for a ridiculous 27.9% apr (youth and stupidity and a harsh lesson learned).

Well she then let slip that when they closed the account they opened up another account in my name and my settlement was actually on that account (quite what has gone on here I do not know). When I closed the account I stated it was because I was not happy with the interest rate, and not happy with the PPI although I did not know until recently that I could claim it back.

So the lady on the phone said that she would log a complaint about it for me and she took down a note of my reasons for making the complaint and that I will receive a letter within 5 days acknowledging that they are investigating my complaint.

The question now is do I sit back and wait or do I go against what she said and send in the reclaim questionnaire regardless?

PS. My SAR cheque still has not been cashed.

iwantahome

Ooh what a coincidence. Cheque cleared today. SAR must be on its way then.

iwantahome

What are your thoughts? complete the form now? Or wait to see what happens in 5 working day?

Oh does that mean the letter will arrive within 5 days? Or that the letter will be posted in 5 days?