Been offered goodwill gesture - should i accept?

girlscout666

For 2 years now I have been trying to reclaim about £1000 PPI payments back from a Car finance company called Credit Plus.

After a solicitors failed to get any joy from them, a month or so ago I finally contacted the FOS.

Today I have received this email from the Managing Director at Credit Plus:

Dear Jessica,



I am answering your case with the F.O.S service. Our position has not changed from when we spoke earlier in that our position is that the policy was not miss sold. The man hours involved however to complete our case with the FOS service will cost £390. Purely as a goodwill gesture before responding to the FOS I am offering you this same amount.



If I do not here from you by the end of this week we will continue with the case file to the FOS service




I have asked the FOS for advice on whether I should accept this settlement figure, but they ofr course say they can't really advise.

What the lady DID say though, was that if I chose not to accept his goodwill offer and carry on with the case, there is no guaruntee I will get the full payout and it could take another 12-18 months (I REALLY don't want to wait that long after already faffing about for 2 years). So basically she said I either accept this gesture and close the case, OR hold out for many more months and either hit jackpot and get the £1k OR end up with nothing whatsoever.

I think My mind is made up that I want some cash NOW to end this thing, but I suppose what my real question is, is do you reckon I can negotiate with him on this??? i.e ask him to meet me in the middle at £500? Or do I risk him refusing and then taking the offer away completely??

:eek:

dunstonh

What the lady DID say though, was that if I chose not to accept his goodwill offer and carry on with the case, there is no guaruntee I will get the full payout and it could take another 12-18 months (I REALLY don't want to wait that long after already faffing about for 2 years). So basically she said I either accept this gesture and close the case, OR hold out for many more months and either hit jackpot and get the £1k OR end up with nothing whatsoever.

A goodwill offer like this is to get rid of you and avoid paying the FOS fee. If you don't accept, the firm will suffer the FOS fee and will usually withdraw the offer. If you lose your case with the FOS you get nothing. If you win, you may get more.

You need to decide how strong your complaint reason is. Is it a good strong reason like ineligible for cover or good employer sick pay or a weak reason like an unprovable verbal allegation (told you had to have it)?

-taff

You can't negotiate a goodwill offer.
Also, he's misinformed about the payment he'll have to make to the Ombudsman should the complaint be upheld in your favour.

"The standard case fee (which we charge for the 26th and any subsequent “chargeable” case during the year) is £550.

The supplementary case fee for PPI mis-selling cases (chargeable only on the 26th – and any subsequent – case during the year) is £350.

The £550 standard case fee becomes “chargeable” when our customer contact division passes a complaint on for further
work to one of our casework teams. But the fee does not actually become payable until the case is settled and closed. Our finance team sends out an invoice for the case fee to the business concerned at the end of the month in which the case is closed"


There's nothing stopping you pointing that out and re-iterating you want your PPI and associated interest back.

There's nothing stopping you accepting his offer either.