PPI claim Tesco credit card rejected

Choco41

Hi,

I would be extremely grateful for some advice please. My partner took out a Tesco Visa Credit Card back in 2000, with myself as an additional cardholder. We applied for a balance transfer to clear another card that we had as they were offering a good deal at the time. We remember taking advantage of a 90 day free trial for insurance on the account, but remember when returning the form we wrote a note stating that we did not want the insurance to continue past the free 90 day trial. We clearly remember doing this because we were unclear as to what the insurance covered and had no idea as to how much the insurance would be - we remember references to an annual fee. My partner continued with his card for approx 7 years and found himself in a redundancy situation. He sat with a friend going through his finances and his friend pointed out that it looked like he was paying some kind of monthly premium on his Tesco card. My partner therefore wrote to Tesco enquiring as to whether he was paying for insurance and, if so, advised of his redundancy and asked if the policy could be activated. My partner heard nothing in response, except for receiving a letter stating that no now his circumstances have changed, he is no longer eligible for cover! My partner was none the wiser as to what he had been paying for over the years, but accepted that whatever it was it certainly didn't cover redundancy. Now that we know that banks have been mis-selling PPI, we were immediately reminded of this situation and decided to make a claim. After 4 months of liaising with Tesco and obtaining a copy of the signed agreement from them, they have refused my partner's claim by saying that he agreed to the PPI by ticking the box on the postal application. We finally obtained a copy of the agreement from Tesco (after being sent copies of someone else's records first) and we can see that there are ticks. The agreement reads like this, 'Cardholder Payment Protection' CPP is designed to protect your Tesco Visa Card payments in the event of death, accident, sickness or involuntary unemployment. We strongly recommend you take out this cover'. For cover tick this box (it is ticked). However, we're certain we didn't tick this box and have hunted high and low to try to find our copy of the agreement. Trouble is, without it, it's our word against theirs. Underneath it says 'Card Protection 90 day free trial' - please tick one box to protect ALL your cards and those belonging to members of your household against loss or theft with Card Protection. It goes on to say Yes, I wish to register my cards against loss and theft and take advantage of the 90 days free cover (box ticked for £10 one year household policy). However, there is no copy of the note that we sent with the application stating that we did not want any insurance cover past the 90 day free trial. We didn't receive any policy documentation whatsoever from Tesco about any insurance at any time throughout the time the card was active and therefore had no reason to believe that there was any insurance on the card. My partner assumed that the monthly payments being taken were simply compulsory charges against the credit, which is why he didn't pursue any redundancy claim. Tesco have flatly refused the PPI claim and said another department would endeavour to respond regarding the redundancy issue. Has anyone else had a similar experience with this? if so, we would be grateful for any advice? Should we take this to the FOS?

Many thanks in advance.

Choco41

-taff

You didn't cancel the PPI, you cancelled the Card Protection. They sound the same, but they aren't.

PPI should have covered his redundancy, but only after his garden leave had finished.

You can either take it all to the FOS if you've had a full and final rejection from Tesco, or you can separately get in touch as to why it didn't pay out when he was made redundant. Although you say in part of your post that he didn't claim because he didn't understand it? SO did he or didn't he?

Your Card Protection argument isn't that great, unless you use it to show you didn't fully understand the product.

Choco41

Thanks for your reply. No, unfortunately we didn't understand the insurance at the time. The form is quite decieving in that it refers to Cardholder Payment Protection (it makes no mention of any fee), then directly underneath this it states Card Protection - 90 day free trial. It then says please tick box to protect all your cards etc and then states 'Yes, I wish to register my cards against loss and theft AND take advantage of the 90 days free cover' - tick box for £10 one year household policy or £25 for three years. This card protection was mis-leading in that it appeared that the protection covers were one and the same. There was no mention of any additional premiums to that of the one year or three year fee. We therefore decided to take the 90 day free trial and attached a note to the application stating that we didn't require any insurance after this period. As previously advised, it wasn't until my partner was going through his finances with a friend following redundancy that it came to light that he was paying a monthly premium for something (he thought this was just a usual compulsory charge for the credit). He therefore wrote to Tesco asking if this charge was for an insurance and, if so, was it something that would cover his redundancy. He received no reply to his questions, only a letter advising that he was no longer eligible for cover, without any explanation. He therefore accepted that he didn't have cover on the card. Why would he think otherwise because it wasn't something that he had knowingly signed up for.

I'm looking at the copy agreement now and I'm more than sure that we did not put a tick by the Card Payment Protection, because it would not have made sense because it appeared to be included in the 90 day free trial which is why we ticked that box instead. At no time did we ever receive any kind of policy documentation and for all intents and purposes, we were not aware that we had this type of cover on the card.

Tesco has said that we should get a response from another department in relation to why the 'cover' was cancelled following being notified of my partner's redundancy. I don't believe there was even a policy in place, yet it is now clear that my partner was being charged an additional sum each month for it.

We do feel quite cheated by Tesco, particularly as now it is very clear that my partner was paying for PPI, albeit unknowingly, but Tesco blatantly failed to provide any details of the cover and, when asked details about the monthly charge, they failed to respond, but instead cancelled the policy!

Regards.

Choco41

karenll

we are experiencing the same problems with tesco, we applied online for the tesco credit card and refused the ppi protection and card payment protection, we signed the agreement form and sent it back. as like you with the ppi in the news, we put in a claim as we had refused it online but it had been added to our card, we thought that this couldnt be cancelled once it was up and running. tesco say that we ticked the boxes on the application form but im positive that we didnt, they have refused to pay out. it has gone to two ombudsmen, we have now discovered that we already had the payment protection in place with a previous credit card , which we added our tesco card to the plan which will hopefully prove that we didnt tick the box , because why would we want two policies running, hopefully this will make our case stronger. Have you had any results with your case?

[Deleted User]

karenll wrote: »

Have you had any results with your case?

Choco41 last logged onto the forum in January.
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FOS referrals take as long as eighteen months.