Credit card PPI charges - will the person who sold it get in trouble?

kittykat96

This sounds a bit strange, but when I took out my credit card in 2005, I had just started working at HBOS and it was common practice to sell credit cards to new starters as it boosted the branch's targets. It was my friend who sold me the credit card along with PPI, because I knew it would help get our manager off her back. The credit card is now paid off and the account is closed, and I'd like to reclaim the PPI, but will my friend who sold me it be in trouble from her employer, will she know I've reclaimed it or will it make her look bad somehow? I stopped working at the hellhole years ago, but she still works there and she's still a good friend, I wouldn't want her to get into any sort of trouble.

dunstonh

With small firms or regulated individuals it will go against them. With most staff at banks it will not.

JuicyJesus

kittykat96 wrote: »

It was my friend who sold me the credit card along with PPI, because I knew it would help get our manager off her back.

Leaving aside your friend, who would probably be OK, this means you were not mis-sold and have no grounds to reclaim. The fact you were an employee of HBOS at the time will not help either, nor the fact that you explicitly opted in to the PPI (regardless of your reasons for doing so).

Any complaint would have to acknowledge that you specifically asked for PPI without any pressure, making this a mis-purchase and not a mis-sale.

-taff

I don't see why they can't... if it was common practice to boost sales by selling, without seeing if it was needed, that's still misselling.

JuicyJesus

-taff wrote: »

I don't see why they can't... if it was common practice to boost sales by selling, without seeing if it was needed, that's still misselling.

Because "common practise" is not a reason to uphold a specific allegation of missale on a specific sale where the customer was a) an employee of the bank concerned and therefore theoretically fully aware of the product and its relevant exclusions, or able to obtain this information remarkably easily, and b) explicitly opting in to purchase the product off their own initiative, which means the bank doesn't need to do any sort of checking as to whether there is actually a need there because it's at the customer's request.

Nobody sold it to her or told her to get it. She bought it willingly, for the right reasons or not, and for that reaon alone it is not a missale.

Comyface

I agree you don't really have grounds for mis-sale.

If you didn't want the PPI, you could have cancelled it as soon as you got the card (or after 30 days, so there was no clawback on the branch targets). You also didn't need to use the card. There was no need for you to pay for PPI at all.

-taff

So buying a product specifically to get someone else off your back is not being pressured into buying something?

JuicyJesus

-taff wrote: »

So buying a product specifically to get someone else off your back is not being pressured into buying something?

That isn't what the OP said. They said they bought it to help out their friend. There was no pressure on the OP other than indirectly, and regardless she asked for it specifically, which again blows mis-sale out of the water.