FOS Will Not uphold our Complaint!!

Crazy_Saver

Hi Guys.

I can honestly say that I am really choked. We received a letter from the FOS yesterday basically saying that due to lack of evidence, they are siding with the "firm".

I am shocked at how much of the FOS's findings are based on assumption due to the lack of evidence. Why is it that "we" as the consumer have to back up our complaint with evidence but the words "suggested", and "I cannot say for certain" appear in so often in the FOS report.

I cannot believe how one sided the arguement is!

A few quotes from the report:

"There was no record of any savings or investments held at the time"

"I note however that you were seeking to buy at £65k and planned to 'put down' £10k which suggests that there were some savings held at the time"

This £10k was part of £12k equity that we hoped we would get when we sold our then existing property-as mentioned in the fact find. We only made £6k in the end so only 'put down' £5k. Surely this isn't classed as savings!

Moving on to repaying the mortgage and providing a surplus,

"Whilst I note the representations about this, and while it is possible that you were led to believe that the policy would repay your mortgage and provide a surplus, this is not the same as a binding guarantee from the firm. In this case I have not seen sufficient evidence to establish that the firm gave you a binding guarantee."

No proof either way there!

Risks next,

"You have said that you would not have taken the policy if you had been aware of the risks. You have said that you would have either kept your existing endowment and topped up with a repayment, or taken out a full repayment mortgage.
I cannot say for certain whether you were prepared to take the risks associated with the policy."

The reason that we may have considered keeping our original endowment was because we had a document regarding it stating that "At the end of the the mortgage term you will receive an estimated tax free cash surplus of £47,723."

Moving on to "Churning"

"I cannot say for certain whether you were advised to cancel your existing policies, but it seems to me likely that the policies were at least discussed with you. On the balance of probabilities, it seems to me that the idea of the increased cover you required at a lower cost could have been appealing to you, and that you were interested in being insured with a provider shown historically to have been a consistently top performer.
I have therefore not seen sufficient evidence to allow me safely to conclude that your action to cancel the policies was as a result of specific advice you received from the firm, rather than your own personal choice."

Balance of probabilities!!!:mad:
Imagine if we had tried that one on the complaint form!:rotfl:
Would we really have gone to the firm with that attitude, would we really have cared who the cover was with? I don't think so. As I have said in many previous posts, we were young, naive, completely clueless when it came to insurance policies and just keen to get decent advice on a subject we knew very little about.

Lastly, tampered documents,

"I note that the signatures are dated 4.10.90. The record was made at the first meeting and updated in May 1991. There is insufficient evidence for me to be able to conclude that the signatures have been 'overlaid' and, in any case, I have no reason to doubt that the information does not reflect your circumstaces at the time."

So even though the signatures are for the wrong date and the document is quite obviously a photocopy of more than one piece of paper, it is irrelevent because the FOS adjudicator has already made his/her mind up:cool:

It really does amaze me that this report is based on "might have been's", "it seem's likely's" and "cannot say for certain's".

I so wish that I knew then what I know now. I really am a genuine claimant who is looking at a £30k shortfall. I am sure that at least if we had kept our original endowment then maybe we would have had a better case. It all seems so easy for other people.

Any way, ranting over. I will get another surrender value tomorrow when Zurich are open and will then be back on these boards to get some advice as to how we can just move on and try and make up some of the shortfall.

Thanks to all of you who tried to help me with my case: dunstonh, vinno65, mayb, DOTW, Edinvestor and many others.:beer:

Regards

Crazy Saver

vinno65

Hi Crazysaver,
if this is just an adjudicator's findings then you can still ask for your complaint to be passed on to an ombudsman for a final decision. You can then make further representations about why you disagree with the adjudicator point by point.

Good luck Vinno.