Ocean Finance

Maxrara

I have just received a letter and questionaire from Ocean Finance which starts as a valued customer ....ensure that you have been, and continue to be, treated fairly....

Recently the FSA has issued new guidelines relating to the sale of PPI......all firms who arrange this type of policy are being asked to review the way in which cover was sold and, in some cases, to contact customers who purchased a policy form them.

.....We will write to you with our findings within eight weeks of receiving your questionaire.

We took out a secured loan through Ocean back in 2005 for £38,000 plus £5,500 insurance plus interest of £2,600 approx. We believed that the loan was conditional on us having the insurance, although the paperwork stated that it was optional but did have the words handwritten on the bottom 'please both sign and date'; and I had to complete an affordability form as they required that the main wage earner was earning 4 x the loan plus any outstanding mortgage owed - strange but true.

It was a single cover (although the loan was in both our names) and only covered the first 5 years not the whole 132 months.

I worked in the NHS (20 years) with all of the benefits (12 months sick pay; good redundancy terms; and death in service payments).

I never consider putting in a claim before but I now wonder whether I have a case - I like to be fair minded in what I do. Any advice or comments would be very welcome.
Thanks

Alpine_Star

This will be part of the FSA's Root Cause Analysis requirements whereby firms are obliged to review entire tranches of PPI sales where they have experienced high volumes of complaints from. Essentially they are inviting you to complain if you think you may have a grievance over the way in which the PPI was sold. This means that their's a good chance that the PPI was mis-sold to you. That you felt the PPI was in any way conditional to the loan or superfluous to your requirements could be grounds for complaint. Moreover as it was a single premium PPI there are additional caveats in the way it should have been sold.

By filling in the form honestly you are not making a claim but merely responding to an invitation to compete the questionnaire.

Niggly_2

Maxrara wrote: »

I have just received a letter and questionaire from Ocean Finance which starts as a valued customer ....ensure that you have been, and continue to be, treated fairly....

Recently the FSA has issued new guidelines relating to the sale of PPI......all firms who arrange this type of policy are being asked to review the way in which cover was sold and, in some cases, to contact customers who purchased a policy form them.

.....We will write to you with our findings within eight weeks of receiving your questionaire.

We took out a secured loan through Ocean back in 2005 for £38,000 plus £5,500 insurance plus interest of £2,600 approx. We believed that the loan was conditional on us having the insurance, although the paperwork stated that it was optional but did have the words handwritten on the bottom 'please both sign and date'; and I had to complete an affordability form as they required that the main wage earner was earning 4 x the loan plus any outstanding mortgage owed - strange but true.

It was a single cover (although the loan was in both our names) and only covered the first 5 years not the whole 132 months.

I worked in the NHS (20 years) with all of the benefits (12 months sick pay; good redundancy terms; and death in service payments).

I never consider putting in a claim before but I now wonder whether I have a case - I like to be fair minded in what I do. Any advice or comments would be very welcome.
Thanks

One question. Did the payments for the ppi stop after 5 years or are you still paying for the policy over the length of the term. Okay a second question did they give you a cash back amount on the 5th anniversary.

You have a very strong case due to the level of existing benefits you already have, the fact it only covers one of you and that the policy is so expensive compared to the benefits it could pay out, if any. Also if the policy has stopped after 5 years I assume you didnt know that you would continue paying for the rest of the term. The cost plus interest of this policy is probably more than the benefits it could provide given the level of benefits you already have. It will not pay the redundancy cover, and it wont pay the sickness cover and the life insurance is irrelevent because it is inexpensive(FOS quote not mine). You have been stiched up like a kipper. What you needed was cover that started after the main benefits you have stopped paying (deferred benefits), this would have cost a lot less. So the firm havent taken into account your existing cover and I dont think they should have sold the policy to you. Finally its highly likely that they took up to 70% of the PPI premuium as commission, I bet this wasnt disclosed on any key documents sent to you. This is known as secret commission.

Fill out the complaint form. Quote the above reasons for mis=sale and await for a big fat cheque and for the loan to be restructured from outset without the ppi payments thus reducing your payments by 14% each month.

You will get back all the payments towards the ppi plus interest for the last 6 years.

:beer: n
N

Maxrara

Thanks for the input very helpful. In answer to your questions:- The payment for the cover was spread over the full term of the loan - payments haven't gone down, and No we did not receive any payment on the 5th Annversary. The info on the paperwork under other info reads - The optional payment protection Insurance premium of £5,520 mentioned above relates to the single A.S.U 7 Single Life cover protection plan referred to in the brochure given to you earlier ........ the total interest charge is .... which includes £2, 832.96 interest charge for PPI. .........repaid by monthly installments. I hope that this makes sense!

One more question if I may. The info also states that the APR 8.4 is variable capped. The rate may be reduced or increased but it will never be higher than the rate shown.............. The interest rate may be varied by us from time to time to reflect any changes in the cost of us operating and funding our business - see paragragh 4 overleaf (there is no overleaf!). In calculating the APR we have ignored any possible variation in the interest rate.

I am sure that I did agree to having the rate capped (so that we knew where we stood each year in regards to our committments but is the bit about them being able to change the interest rate from time to time to cover their costs etc somthing to worry about and what does it mean by variable capped? Thanks again.

Niggly_2

Maxrara wrote: »

Thanks for the input very helpful. In answer to your questions:- The payment for the cover was spread over the full term of the loan - payments haven't gone down, and No we did not receive any payment on the 5th Annversary. The info on the paperwork under other info reads - The optional payment protection Insurance premium of £5,520 mentioned above relates to the single A.S.U 7 Single Life cover protection plan referred to in the brochure given to you earlier ........ the total interest charge is .... which includes £2, 832.96 interest charge for PPI. .........repaid by monthly installments. I hope that this makes sense!

One more question if I may. The info also states that the APR 8.4 is variable capped. The rate may be reduced or increased but it will never be higher than the rate shown.............. The interest rate may be varied by us from time to time to reflect any changes in the cost of us operating and funding our business - see paragragh 4 overleaf (there is no overleaf!). In calculating the APR we have ignored any possible variation in the interest rate.

I am sure that I did agree to having the rate capped (so that we knew where we stood each year in regards to our committments but is the bit about them being able to change the interest rate from time to time to cover their costs etc somthing to worry about and what does it mean by variable capped? Thanks again.

No just cant go above cap but can vary below this.

N

amersall

Niggly wrote: »

No just cant go above cap but can vary below this.

N

Pity FP did not offer this scenario? :(