What if the company breaches the 16 week rule from the FSA?

PGT1

I am nearing the 16 weeks with my First Plus claim. I have no faith in them as they said that I would hear from them by the 3rd August (4th letter I think), but heard nothing. Phoned them and they said they were inundated with requests (no surprise there!), but that they had until 31st August when the FSA 16 week period expires. What happens if they don't meet this target? Yes, I know I can go to the Financial Ombudsman, but I have done this about 8 months ago with 2 credit card PPI claims and heard a month ago from the Financial Ombudsman that these claims might not be settled for up to a year. Presumably, if I did this for the First plus claim, It would take them up to a year to process this?

:mad:

amersall

Right guys and gals ......... the FSA and the FOS ...........
Who agreed to the extension for some of the banks............................................. ...............

DO NOT KNOW IF THE 31ST OF AUGUST IS THE DEADLINE FOR CLAIMS TO BE PAID BY OR JUST OFFER LETTERS TO BE SENT.:rotfl:

THIS BEGGERS BELIEF,WHEN THEY GRANTED THE EXTENSION IN THE FIRST PLACE :D:D:D:D:D:D

ALL THIS AFTER 2, 20 MINUTES PHONE CALLS TO THE FOS AND THE FSA ,THE GUY AT THE FSA IS ESCALATING THIS ?????TO SEE IF THE BANKS HAVE BROKEN ANY RULES BY SAYING THEY HAVE 8 WEEKS AFTER THE OFFER LETTER TO PAY OUT ????????????????? WHEN THE FSA AND FOS PUT THIS IN PLACE!!!THEY SHOULD KNOW WHAT THE AUGUST DEADLINE MEANS :mad::mad:

YOU COULDNT MAKE IT UP :p:p COULD YOU :wall::wall::wall:

So the answer to your question is.....no one knows,not even the regulators :rotfl::rotfl:

amersall

PGT1 wrote: »

I am nearing the 16 weeks with my First Plus claim. I have no faith in them as they said that I would hear from them by the 3rd August (4th letter I think), but heard nothing. Phoned them and they said they were inundated with requests (no surprise there!), but that they had until 31st August when the FSA 16 week period expires. What happens if they don't meet this target? Yes, I know I can go to the Financial Ombudsman, but I have done this about 8 months ago with 2 credit card PPI claims and heard a month ago from the Financial Ombudsman that these claims might not be settled for up to a year. Presumably, if I did this for the First plus claim, It would take them up to a year to process this?

:mad:

Hi there, you are bettr off waiting for FP as you will endure a longer wait with the FOS.

magpiecottage

The deadline is for the response to be sent. That is not necessarily an offer.

For an offer of redress to be made it is necessary for there to be:

A loss (there may not be if a claim has been successfully made on the policy)

A failure on the part of whoever sold the policy to comply with the requirements at that time (which may have been different to what they are now). There is, for example, no entitlement to redress if no advice was given unless the literature provided to you was misleading and no entitlement to redress if the recommendation relied on something you told them at the time which turned out to be inaccurate unless they should not have recommended it anyway..

A causal link - this means that even if they did not go through the correct processes if they can demonstrate that, had they done so, the recommendation would have been the same then the error has not caused the loss. It is unlikely to apply to PPI.

PGT1

Interesting comments so far and I thank you for these. What I have gleaned from them so far is that the saga appears to be very much in the beginning rather than nearing the end to all this! Has anyone actually received an offer and payout in the 16 week time frame?

debasur

I was going to ask the same question as the title of this thread.
I had a claim against barclaycard/First plus on a secured loan. The FOS sent me a letter stating that First Plus are going to send me a offer (so claim upheld) and i fall into the end of august category for said letter to arrive. Every day i check the post with anticipation but no joy!
I did try to ring First plus on a number that was included on the FOS letter but as soon as i said it was regarding ppi i was hung up on three times!

src007

PGT1 wrote: »

Phoned them and they said they were inundated with requests (no surprise there!), but that they had until 31st August when the FSA 16 week period expires. What happens if they don't meet this target? :mad:

In the past there was an 8 week deadline. Whilst some organisations were very good at meeting this (and still are) I would say about 50% of the time the banks would miss this.

Barclays, HSBC and Yorkshire Bank would often take as long as six months to issue a response.

The penalty? I've never heard of any fine given.

I strongly suspect if they miss the 16 week deadline they will just be told to hurry up! You will get a response though eventually. Its only the very worst organisations that never respond and even the banks wouldn't stoop that low (as much as they'd like to!).

magpiecottage

The deadline is for the complaint to be put into the post - not to be received (some years ago I typed up an offer and put it into a postbox on a Saturday afternoon to meet a deadline that was on the Sunday - although there were no collections until the Monday the deadline was deemed to have been met).

That said, the reality is that only a finite number of individuals are available to work on these cases and there are only so many hours in the day so it regardless of what the deadline is. Furthermore, since the cost of redress will, in the end, be passed on to the consumer, it is important that firms receiving a large number of unwarranted complaints are able to sift them out.

From experience, firms will work as fast as possible and give the benefit of reasonable doubt to the customer but it is possible that some cases will need further investigation.

PGT1

Thanks for the further replies. Still interested to hear from others though, maybe those that have been successful within the 16 week period?

It makes you wonder why they don't just settle the claims in the same way Barclays said they would for those before the court ruling. It seems to me an amazingly cost ineffective way of dealing with this - not just financially with the staff etc, but with the cost to their business from the bad will over this too.