PPI Claim in Limbo

Warkake

Hello all, I was hoping you may be able to help out a little, as I'm at my wits end with the situation.

In May 2011 I opened a PPI claim against Barclays, and in September 2011 they said I had a case, and would refund me a certain amount, which would be completed in up to 8 weeks.

In December 2011, £1000 appeared in my account, which turned out to be a small portion of the refund. No explanation was given as to what this money was at the time.

In January 2012, I received a letter stating that to receive the other £4k, and get the lower monthly loan repayment, I needed to sign and return the enclosed forms within 10 days.
The trouble was, the 10 day deadline had expired 12 days before I received the letters. Some of the enclosed documents were dated December 2011, others January 2012.

Then, in a nutshell, I have signed and returned the documents, and over the course of 3 months, 10 phone calls and 3 emails, (all emails ignored) I was told that various things from "It will be sorted in a few working days" to "You should have been sent new forms to sign, the old ones were late" to "Forms will be sent tomorrow" and finally today "Forms have not been sent, can't say when they will, sorry you can't speak to anyone else about the matter."

It seems I've been fobbed off since January, and every time I call, it's nearly sorted, then back to nowhere near sorted. All my emails were ignored, despite asking for acknowledgement of them, and I'm at my wits end to know what to do next.

My claim seems to be stuck in limbo.

As a last resort, I sent an email to Barclays CEO, a nice, polite, but pointed letter asking for an explanation into why nothing seems to have happened.

Does anyone else know what I can do short of repeating my calls to them every few weeks?

Thanks for reading my tale of common woe.

di3004

Hi there

So sorry to hear of your issues here with no fault of your own.

You could try contacting your local MP who will write to them on your behalf on request.
I'm sure he or she will be happy to help you.

Give it a go, good luck.

Warkake

Well, my email to Barclays CEO has got some attention, he passed it onto an Executive within the customer services area who has promised to investigate the matter and provide a response by 11-04-12.

Fingers crossed it actually comes to something, and isn't just another hollow action like what I've had so far...

dunstonh

, he passed it onto an Executive within the customer services area

LOL. Banks love giving inappropriate titles to junior staff to make them sound more grand than they are.

That your email says in plain language is that it has been passed to their complaints team who are required to respond to you under FSA guidelines. That is the same complaints team that would have got your complaint had you gone to them in the first place.

magpiecottage

I would be inclined to give them seven days or you go to FOS.

That may speed them up because they will incur a fee of £500 for it.

When they get the letter from FOS they will either settle immediately or let it go into the system and risk FOS making a further award against them (and to you) for messing you around.

Warkake

I'll bear FOS in mind, if nothing comes of it by the end of the month I think those guys will be my final option really, everything I've done so far has come to naught.

@dunstonh, you'll be right in saying that, it'll have just been forwarded to the same people who have been ignoring my previous emails. At least this time they've acknowledged me though, first time for everything.

It's funny, there's a girl in my office who's family have all worked for Barclays, dad, uncles, grandad's, all the way back to when it was called Martins or something, but she has said that all of them over the years have decried how badly Barclays treats its customers.

Hell, her own dad was given a letter on one Christmas Eve saying he was going down to half pay because he had been on sick leave for six months, despite being back at work four months previous!

dunstonh

Banks are a nightmare at admin. You wont find many arguments there. In the late 80s, early 90s, the staff were required to get the chartered institute of bankers qualification to proceed beyond assistant manager and training on jobs was taken carefully and in depth. Today, they give very little training and throw low qualified people in to the role and we get the poor service was have.

Part of the problem is that most people dont seem to want to pay for the service. So, we are in effect getting the service that we are willing to pay for.

Warkake

Well, a small update on the issue:

Got a reply off this 'Executive' and they have said the forms that I've been promised since January will arrive by the end of this week. If they don't, I'm to contact said 'Executive' again.

They have also given me their personal (work) address to return the forms to, as opposed to the regular return address, and they will take the forms to the PPI people personally.

We shall see how this plays out...

Warkake

Forms received today and returned to said 'Executive'.

A nice touch was the refund amount being quite a lot larger than they had originally told me in the out-of-date forms in January.

Ever the cynic I'll not get my hopes up until my bank balance is suddenly enlarged. It's a start though!